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JACK WILLIAMSON • R. Z. UALLUN . 


KENT CASEY 


Rtc. u. s. r*T. omcc^ 


JULY 1938 



Sensational Scientific 
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ovaie, me germ 
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marked improvement in, the 
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SCIENCE-FICTION 

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Volume XXI Number 5 

JULY, 1938 

A Street & Smith Publication 



NOTICE— This magazine contains new stories only. No reprints are used. 



Complete Novelettes: 



20 



RULE 18 Clifford D. Simak 32 

Concerning the annual Earth-Mart football game — and the coach who pulled 
the prize bright play of all Timel 

THE MEN AND THE MIRROR Ross Rocklynne* 74 

The Late and the Outlaw — trapped together by the Lawe of Phyeict ■ 

Short Stories: 

VOYAGE 13 Ray Cummings 6 

Politics and Death^loose on an interplanetary line r 

THE SECRET OF THE CANALI Clifton B. Kruse 

The Martians were gone — yet Mars could provide lining for thousands. Where — 

Ao tc — why 

GOOD OLD BRIG! Kent Casey 52 

Jt teas a navy of spaceships — but plain boresome to paint-scraper, bilge-cleaner 
Kelton. Kelton jumped ship — and found it wasn't the planet he thought! 

THE DANGEROUS DIMENSION L Ron Hubbard 100 

Professor Mudge teas a philosopher — till he discovered how to ride the wings of 
Thought, but NOT how to get off again! 

HOTEL COSMOS Raymond Z. Gallun 140 

In a hotel harboring the races — and the race hatreds—^of a hundred solar 
systems — wildfire trouble starts! 

Serial Novel: 

THE LEGION OF TIME (Conclusion) .... Jack Williomson 118 

The hittory-changing, all-important little thing recoterrd, Denny Lanning flnit — 

a rutty Ford part! 

Science Feature Articles: 

LANGUAGE FOR TIME-TRAVELERS . . . L Sprague deCamp 

A «ci>«ce heretofore unconsidered in science-fiction — the future of language. 

GIANT STARS Arthur McCann 

The recentlg measured Epsilon Aurigae is the largest star known^or <a itt 
And just when is a star not a star — but something elset 

Readers^ Departments: 

EDITOR'S PAGE 73 

IN TIMES TO COME 99 

The Department of Prophecy and Juture l»sue». 

THE ANALYTICAL LABORATORY 99 

A review, in tabular form, of former iteuet. 

SCIENCE DISCUSSIONS AND BRASS TACKS 153 

The Open House of Controversy. 

Cover by H. W. Brown. Illustrations by Brown, Dold, Schneeman, Thomson and Wesso. 

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6 



RAY CUMMINGS 

tells of the politics and death that walked the 
corridors of the spaceship WANDERER on — 



VOYAGE 13 



B y the gods of the Starways, that’s 
a sweet-looking girl,” Green 
said. “Fling her a look, Jon.” 
I peered with interest. Wavvy Green, 
young Helioinan of the Wanderer, and 
I were lounging under the dome near 
the bridge outside the Control Room, 
watching the embarking passengers. The 
Wanderer was racked in the big landing 
stage at Amberoh, Capital of the Venus 
Free State, ready now to start for Great 
New York. The big glassite ports were 
still rolled back from the deck dome, 
and Green and I had a vista down into 
the blue-lit stage. 

“See her?” Green added. 

I saw her presently as she came up 
the little incline — a small, pale-blonde 
girl, with a young man beside her. Both 
wore the long cloak-drapes characteristic 
of the upper caste of the Venus Free 
State. The girl’s drape was pale blue. 
As she boarded us, the incline tube- 
lights glared on her face. It was a face 
of delicate, exquisite beauty — lilylike — 
with the creamy complexion character- 
istic of the Venus nobility. 

I was not unduly impressionable to 
feminine beauty; certainly in my capac- 
ity as Assistant Navigator of the Wan- 
derer I had seen girls of scores of races 
and on many planets. But here was 
something that quickened my pulse — 
an ethereal beauty — a purity — and a sort 
of helplessness. At the top of the in- 
cline she stopped suddenly. Her young 
man companion had turned away mo- 



mentarily. She spoke to him, and he 
quickly took her arm. 

“She’s blind,” Green said. 

“You know who she is?” 

“Normal! Velah II, no less,” he ex- 
plained. “The young fellow with her 
is her brother, Roberoh. And if you 
look closely you’ll see at least fourteen 
men down there on the stage who have 
bodyguarded them here. And now that 
they’re on board it’s up to Mac.” 

Our little red-headed helioman always 
made a p>oint of knowing everything. I 
had had no idea we were to liave such 
distinguished passengers this voyage. 
As a matter of fact, their embarkation 
had not been announced; Wavvy got it 
from our Purser. 

The girl and her tall, dark-haired 
brother had disappeared now on the side 
deck almost directly under us. 

“Here’s Mac now,” Wavvy Green 
added. 

Mack Mackenzie, a big, rawboned, 
six-foot Scotsman, was an Anglo-Alli- 
ance Shadow Man, detailed from Great- 
London for duty on the Wanderer to 
represent the Interplanetary Police. He 
always posed as a passenger. He came 
lounging toward us. 

“I see we’ve got distinguished guests,” 
I murmured. 

“Ye’ll be forgettin’ it,” he retorted 
softly. “Eavesdroppin’ rays have keen 
ears.” 

“The girl knocked Jon dead,” Green 
chuckled. “You could see it on his 




A shadow stirred far down the deck — a Banning spat its sizzling spark of 
heat. Wawy Green slumped almost silently to the deck plates. 



face. So now he’s a star-crossed lover 
— moon-struck. I’m a motor-oiler if 
he isn’t.” 

“You go wrap up an electric spark,” 
I told him. I moved away from his 
gibes and went into the Control Room, 
to work on the trajectory charts. And 
a few minutes later Voyage 13 was 



under way — a voyage ill-fated for us as 
the ancient superstition of the number 
would indicate. 

I AM Jon Halory. I was age twenty- 
five at that tinje — Assistant Navigator 
of the Wanderer. With the Earth and 
Venus well past conjunction, this was 



8 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



to be our last voyage of the Astronomi- 
cal Season. By ship’s routine, it was 
mklafternoon when we departed. I went 
at my duties. But despite the necessity 
of tossing long and intricate equations 
to calculate the elements of our forth- 
coming course, I could not get that 
Venus girl, Nonnah Velah II, out of 
my mind. I had heard of her, of course. 
The Wanderer, this voyage, had been 
racked in the stage at Ambelah for 
nearly a week. 

It had been a tumultuous week in 
the affairs of the Venus Free State. 
For nearly a year trouble had ^en brew- 
ing with the natives of the outlying, 
mountainous districts. The hill people 
were restless, eager for a governmental 
change that would benefit their be- 
nighted condition. It was largely the 
result of their own incapacity; the Lib- 
eral Government of the Free State was 
doing very well by them. But always 
under such circumstances, a leader will 
arise to capitalize discontent for his own 
lust for power. 

Such a leader had arisen. He was 
known as Talone, not even a native of 
Venus. Vaguely it was understood that 
he had come from Mars — ousted from 
Fcrrok-Shahn for similar activities. 

But on Venus, among the ignorant, 
his bombastic talk gained him a huge 
following. 

I was not familiar with the details. 
,But this week, when the Wanderer lay 
racked in Ambelah, open revolt broke 
out in the city. There was an attack 
upon Government House, and President 
Velah was assassinated. The mob 
within a day was in control; and from 
the hills, Talone came marching, possess- 
ing himself of the Government, pro- 
claiming Interregnum Law until a new 
election could be held. 

My fellow officers and I were not al- 
lowed from the Wanderer. The city was 
in a turmoil. Vaguely, we were given 
to understand that Roberoh, and Nor- 
mah — the President’s young son and 



daughter — had escaped from Govern- 
ment House and taken refuge in the 
living quarters of the Officials of the 
Landing Stage. It was under the flag 
of the Interplanetary League — and not 
even the swaggering Talone and his 
roistering fellows dared attack it. And 
now Roberoh and Normah were em- 
barking for Earth. All that afternoon 
and evening, I could not get the vision 
of that ethereal-faced little blind girl out 
of my mind. 

It was well after the evening meal be- 
fore the Wanderer rose through the 
dense fogs of the Venus atmosphere and 
emerged into the sunlight of Interplan- 
etary Space. Captain Jaquero was never 
one to hurry his ascent; the comfort of 
the passengers, to him, was beyond a 
few hours of the voyage. Mrs. Re>'n- 
olds, our Matron, had few cases of pres- 
sure sickness. The Wanderer, of all the 
Starway Fleet, had a reputation for 
comfort. Despite the trying Venus at- 
mosphere — with its weird changes and 
its interminable moisture content — the 
Wanderer remained comfortable. We 
maintained on board a gravity of 
Earth .9 ; temperature 72 F. ; interior 
air pressure 15.75 lbs. per square inch, 
with the Erentz pressure equalizers 
working perfectly. 

It was nine p. m., ship’s time — mid- 
evening — when I finished calculating the 
elements of our trajectory. Captain 
Jaquero and First Officer Peters ap- 
proved them ; we set the electronic grav- 
ity plates and slowly turned, with the 
sunlight bathing our stern and the bow 
a glory of starlight, prismatic in the 
black vault of Space. 

WITH MY JOB done, I went from 
the Control Room for a stroll on the 
star-gazer’s deck, as they call it — a sev- 
enty-foot little deck under the glassite 
dome. A few of the larger passenger 
cabins were here, and in the stern was 
Green’s little helio-radio cubby. We had 
few passengers this voyage — no more 



VOYAGE 13 



9 



than six or eight, it seemed. One or 
two were standing gazing through the 
bulls-eyes of tlie dome. 

Then to one side, I saw a little group 
— Dr. Blake, our Ship’s Physician, 
seated with Roberoh and Normah Velah. 
I approached them with my heart ac- 
celerated and a queerly asinine regret 
within me that this blind girl could not 
see that I was a stalwart, fairly hand- 
some fellow, sleek and efficient-looking 
in my white linen. Green would have 
gibed at me, but there was no one to 
know how I felt as Dr. Blake introduced 
me and I sat quietly in the group, smok- 
ing and saying very little. 

I recall we talked of nothing in par- 
ticular. I saw this murdered Presi- 
dent’s son as a youth no older than his 
sister. They were twins in fact, I 
learned now. Rpberoh was not yet of 
age — which is twenty-two for a male in 
the Venus Free State. He could not 
have held office. 

Dr. Blake — always a blundering fel- 
low — said something like that to Rob- 
eroh. A flush came to the youth’s pa- 
trician face. 

“We do not speak of such things 
now,” he said. “All Venus people are 
intuitive linguists; Roberoh spoke Eng- 
lish with the soft, curiously limpid qual- 
ity characteristic of his race. “My sis- 
ter and I — we are making a voyage to 
Earth — to forget what we have been 
through. Dr. Blake, perhaps, hardly 
understands. But you do, Mr. Halory ?” 

“Yes,” I murmured. 

Our bullet-headed doctor possibly was 
piqued at the rebuke. At all events he 
presently left us. Always, in the offing, 
the tall figure of Mac, our A. A. Shadow 
Man, was visible. I saw him now, clad 
in a Venus cloak that looked absurd on 
his burly figure as he stood alone by a 
bulls-eye with the starlight painting him. 
Apparently he was engrossed in the glit- 
tering dome of the Heavens; in reality 
I knew he was watching us. 

Normah had said almost nothing. At 



ease, she sat back in her padded deck 
chair, her poor blank eyes, blue with the 
starlight, gazing idly — seeing nothing 
but her own thoughts. She was even 
more beautiful, here as I sat with her, 
than I had pictured. Small, slim as a 
child, yet rounded with full maturity, 
the lines of her figure obvious beneath 
her flilmy blue-gray dress with its gold 
cords crossed over her bosom, wound 
around her slight waist and dangling 
with tassels almost to her sandaled feet. 

Perhaps, normally, there would have 
been nothing unduly pathetic in her 
blindness. Certainly she did not seem 
to feel it morbidly. Roberoh spoke of 
things she had read; sculptured works 
of art she had seen with her fingertips. 
And she was a musician, skilled with the 
lutelike vicahnah of Venus. 

“My brother paints me with very 
glorious colors,” she said once. She 
laughed, musically as a lute itself. But 
at once, when her face went into re- 
pose, I could not miss that there was 
upon it a queer look of uneasiness. A 
sort of tense expectancy. As though 
her mind were not on what we were 
saying, but on something else. Some- 
thing — terrifying perhaps. 

QUITE SUDDENLY, as Roberoh 
and I were talking some triviality, she 
broke in upon us. 

“Would you go to our cabin, Rob- 
eroh?” She had suddenly lowered her 
voice. She leaned toward me. “I know 
that we — we can trust you, Mr. Halory. 
Could there — could there be any eaves- 
dropping ray upon us now?” 

“Quiet, Normah,” Roberoh mur- 
mured. “You want me to go ” 

“Yes, please. Oh hurry — I just feel 
frightened ” 

It was as though some extra-normal 
sense were warning her of danger, so 
that she sat with hands gripping the 
sides of her chair, her bosom rising and 
falling with her quickened breath, her 
delicate nostrils dilating. 



10 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Roberoli leaped to his feet with his 
cloak around him. 

“I will go see. But it is nothing, 
Normah.” 

He moved forward along the starlit 
deck, and disappeared down a little half- 
flight inclined to a balconied recess where 
his cabin and Normali’s were located 
side by side almost under the control 
turret. 

Normah and I were left alone. Mo- 
mentarily Mac had moved away. 

“What is it?” I murmured tensely. 

“That Dr. Blake who was here ” 

She was leaning with her hand upon my 
arm ; her voice was barely a whisper. 

“What about him?” I prompted. 

“I — I’m afraid of him — I don’t like 
him ” 

Well, the burly, bullet-headed Blake 
had never been any great favorite of 
mine. But there had not seemed any- 
thing terrifying about him. He was, 
however, what they used to call a lady- 
killer. 

“What did he do to annoy you?” I 
murmured. 

“Nothing. I just feel — that he’s an 
enemy. And others — the whole ship 
maybe ” 

I tried to scoff, but she was so ear- 
nest, so obviously terrified that it made 
me tense. Why had she sent her brother 
so hastily to their cabins? 

Her hand still gripped me. “We 
must not talk of it,” she murmured, 
“but you, I know, we can trust. No 
more now, please ” 

I sat staring at her. And then she 
smiled. 

“Shall we talk?” she murmured. 
“What do young men — like you — on 
Earth talk about when they sit with a 
young girl in the starlight?” 

That wouldn’t have been hard for 
me — under the circumstances she pic- 
tured. But it was hard now, so that 
I sat suddenly tongue-tied. 

“Well ” I said. 

“Of music? Of the stars? You have 



a beautiful Moon, some of the nights 
on Earth? I have read about it.” Slie 
was smiling quizzically. 

“Yes,” I agreed. “The moonlight 
and a pretty girl — well you’re supposed 
to talk about love. I guess it’s the same 
on Venus ” 

I checked myself. Her hand had 
come out; her fingers lightly brushed 
my face. She was still smiling. 

“Excuse me.” she said. “One likes to 
see to whom one is talking.” 

There was no pathos. Her smile was 
faintly quizzical, as she added, “Being 
blind is a little disadvantage in the moon- 
light.” 

“Not at all,” I said. And then im- 
pulsively I quoted, '“Flinging back a 
million starbeams, the vault of Space re- 
minds me of thine eyes.” 

As her hands went to my shoulders, 
I stared into her eyes. The blankness 
seemed vanished, for they were, in truth, 
filled with starlight. For that moment 
our bantering was gone. Both of us 
were breathless. But a little vestige of 
sanity clung to me. 

“A President’s daughter,” I mur- 
mured, “could never be interested in a 
ship’s officer ” 

“You think so? There is no differ- 
ence — a ship’s officer, or a King 

‘If you were a King’ — there is on -Earth 
a poem like that. You say it.” 

“ ‘If I were King’ ”, I murmured. 

‘"Ah love, if I were King, 

What tributary planets I would bring 
To bow before your sceptre, and to swear 
Allegiance to your lips and eyes and hair. 
The stars would be your pearls upon a string. 
Red Mars a ruby for your finger-ring. 

And you could have the Sun and Moon to 
wear — 

If I were King.'" 

IT WAS OUR moment, so suddenly 
come as I held her there in the star- 
light. And then it was dashed. A step 
sounded on the deck near us. I could 
feel Normah stiffen in my arms. Then 
she drew away. ■ A man was coming 



VOYAGE 13 



11 



toward us — one of the passengers. I 
knew his name, Graeff III. He was an 
elderly fellow — a wealthy importer, I 
understood, in Ambelah. His dark cloak 
shrouded him — a tall, but bent figure, 
bare-headed, with the starlight gleaming 
on his mass of gray-white hair, long 
about his ears in the Venus fashion. His 
vacuum-cupped sandals squished on the 
metal-grid of the deck as he walked. 

“That man Graeff ” Norniah was 

murmuring. 

“You’ve met him, Normah?” 

“Yes — this afternoon. Dr. Black in- 
troduced him.” A shuddering terror was 
upon her. 

He came past us. I saw that Mac was 
lounging at a near-by bulls-eye port. 
Graeff, as he came abreast of us, turned 
and came smilingly forward. 

“Ah — it is the beautiful little Nor- 
mah,” he said. His gray-white sagging 
face, with queerly heavy jowls, was 
wrinkled into a smile. His eyes, deep- 
set under shaggy white brows, swept me 
a glance. “One of our young officers?” 
he added. 

“This is Jon Halory,” Norman in- 
troduced. 

I was on my feet, but I did not offer 
the chair. Graeff nodded, teetering on 
his sandals, unsteady as though with 
senility. 

“The starlight,” he said, “is very beau- 
tiful. We will have the Earthlight glow 
in a night or two.” He nodded to me, 
and passed on ; vanished down a near-by 
incline to the cabin quarters below. 

Mac again had gone. I sat down be- 
side Normah. 

“He — of them all — terrifies me,” she 
murmured. “There is evil in him. It 
radiates ” 

Wordlessly, I could only stare. Was 
the Wanderer, this voyage, bristling with 
Talone’s spies? Suddenly I felt our 
helplessness — a little world here, poised 
seemingly motionless in the great abyss 
of Space. Captain Jaquero was armed; 
the Control Turret was a little arsenal. 



But whom could we trust? Normah’s 
words rang through my startled mind: 
“He, of them all, terrifies me.” As 
though this little blind girl could feel 
the radiations of evil. And looking back 
on it now, I have no doubt that she did. 

But why should Talone’s spies be 
here? I knew that by Interplanetary 
Law, tbis girl and youth — both under 
legal age — could have no bearing upon 
the governmental status of the Venus 
Free State. They could not appear be- 
fore the Interplanetary League of Great 
London in protest at Talone’s usurpa- 
tion. Why then would he pursue them? 

Normah was clinging to me. “My 
brother,” she murmured. “He has not 
come back from our cabin! Oh, please 
— take me there — hurry !” 

What was there about her cabin that 
was so terrifying? She clung to me as 
we hurried forward on the starlit deck. 
At the little half-flight incline, Roberoh 
appeared from below. 

“It is — all right?” Normah mur- 
mured. 

“Yes,” he said. He flung a glance at 
me as his arm went around his sister. 
He was smiling, but I could not mis- 
take his agitated tenseness, the pallor of 
his handsome, boyish face, the look of 
terror in his eyes. 

“It is all right, Normah,” he added 
gently. “Do not be frightened.” 

I accompanied them to the mid-flight 
balcony catwalk upon which their com- 
municating cubbies opened. At Nor- 
mah’s door we paused. Roberoh ges- 
tured down the spiral to the main cabin 
corridor close under us. 

“That fellow Graeff,” he said softly, 
“was standing down there. When he 
saw me, he came and went on deck.” 

It brought a little cry from Normah. 
Roberoh drew me aside. 

“I follow my sister,” he said. “In 
English you call it intuition. She has 

it. She knows we can trust you ” 

I nodded. “There is something you 
want to tell me ?” 



12 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“No — or at least not now. I thought 
when we boarded your ship we would 
be safe.” He was murmuring with swift 
vehemence; his gaze again swept down 
the shadowed tube-lit spiral to the blue 
corridor under us. “I know now that 
we are not safe, Halory. You, we can 
trust. And the Captain?” 

“Of course,” I murmured. 

“And there is your Shadow Man 
Mackenzie ” 

So they knew about Mackenzie. 

“And your First Officer Peters— and 
your crew ” 

That startled me. Of our crew of 
twelve, seven had been on shore leave 
when the trouble broke out in Ambelah. 
They had vanished. Captain Jaquero 
had engaged others — seven new men 
aboflt whom we knew nothing. 

“What do you want me to do?” I 
said. 

“You are armed?” 

“Not now. But in my cubby ” 

“In the night — I want no prowlers 
here at our door ” 

Normah’s cubby was dim behind them. 
“Goodnight,” she murmured. “Of ev- 
eryone — it seems perhaps there is only 
you.” 

The door closed upon their tense, 
white faces. 

THE RHYTHMIC HUM of the 
Erentz pressure equalizers sounded 
dimly through my silent cubby. Out- 
side my latticed bulls-eye, facing stern- 
ward, the gigantic silver crescent which 
was Venus still nearly filled the quad- 
rant of the sky, with the Sun blocked 
behind it now. 

“Of everyone — it seems there is only 
you.” Normah’s last words of terror 
pounded in my head. Only these two 
fugitives, and myself to protect them? 
But that was absurd, of course. There 

was old Captain Jaquero ; and Mac 

But who else? Wavvy Green, perhaps. 
I could name no one else. If, indeed, 
Talone’s spies were here, I could easily 



fathom that Blake and Peters could be 
bribed. And Roberts, the purser? I 
knew nothing about him, save that he 
had always seemed a very decent fel- 
low. We had no more than five pas- 
sengers. Who were they, beyond Graeff, 
Normah and Roberoh? I did not know. 

It was the trinight hour now — mid- 
way between midnight and dawn. I 
had prowled. Banning gun under my 
night cloak. But there was nothing. I 
had not seen Mac. Once I searched for 
him, with a sudden impulse to consult 
him. But with the skill of years, Mac 
was like a shadow himself — unseen when 
he was prowling. 

The little Trinight buzz from the 
Control Turret sounded through the si- 
lent interior. I knew that the Captain 
would be at the controls now, with Col- 
lins, our Chief Navigator, beside him. 
The other officers, like myself, were off 
duty. 

For another ten minutes I sat tense, 
pondering. Then again I started for 
Normah’s cabin. The eerie blue-lit cor- 
ridors were empty. There was no one, 
seemingly, on the star-gazer’s little deck. 
The glassite dome over it glowed with 
starlight. Green’s cubby was dark. 

Silently, cloak around me, I moved 
forward, went down the half incline to 
the catwalk balcony. At Normah’s door 
I listened. There was no sound from 
behind its metal panel. 

I am no professional prowler. I was 
tense, jumpy. Was that a moving 
shadow in the corridor under me? I 
thought so. I started down, but if some- 
thing had been there, it was gone. 

Then, as again I paused at Normah’s 
door, dimly from within I heard a mur- 
muring voice. 

“Normah ” 

Then there was an answer in the 
Venus tongue. It was Normah’s agi- 
tated voice, unmistakable. But whose 
was the other? Not Roberoh’s! It was 
blurred, throaty — almost a groan, 

“Normali — Normah ” 



VOYAGE 13 



13 



And then I heard Roberoh’s voice. 
Three of them were in there ! 

For that instant I was shocked into 
confusion. But my wits came back, 
steadied as I realized the existence of 
a low hum — the tiny, microphonic, 
grinding hum of electronic interference. 

An eavesdropping ray ! You can hear 
them sometimes, when you are close to 
a metal obstruction through which they 
are passing. An eavesdropping ray from 
some near-by point was focused upon 
Normah’s door. It was picking up the 
murmur of the three voices and hum- 
ming a little with the door’s interference. 

FOR THAT SECOND I stiffened, 
with my Banning gun pointing down the 
spiral. Was the eavesdropper down 
there? Abruptly I was aware that the 
hum was gone — as though he had 
learned what he wanted to know. 

' I recall that I was part-way down the 
spiral. And then I heard a groan from 
below — a ghastly, gurgling groan as 
though from a throat and mouth choked 
with blood. 

And then came my name: “Halory 
— I’m here ” 

It was Mac. He had misjuggled his 
job, just for once in his life. But once 
was too much. I found him lying in 
a black recess of the lower corridor. A 
knife handle protruded from his chest. 
His hands were futilely plucking at it. 

“Halory — get them — all three of them 

to the Control Turret ’’ Blood was 

grewsome in his throat. “Halory — I’m 
gone — you hurry — they know now he is 
on board — you get to the Turret — your 
only chance because all hell will break 
loose ’’ 

His words were lost in the blood that 
gushed from his mouth. Then he 
twitched and the light went out of his 
eyes. 

For a second I stood transfixed. And 
in that second, as Mac had warned, all 
hell broke loose. From somewhere in 
the ship, like a signal, a brief penetrat- 



ing little whine sounded. There was a 
distant scream from the crew’s quarters 
under me — the sizzling, muffled flash of 
a Banning gun — the tramp of running 

feet — men’s shouting voices 

I turned and leaped up the incline to 
the catwalk balcony — pounded on Nor- 
mah’s door. They had heard the com- 
motion, of course. The door swung in- 
ward as Roberoh opened it to my im- 
perative voice. In the center of the dim 
cabin, Normah stood with her arms 
around an elderly man. He was pallid, 
trembling; his head and one arm were 
bound with surgical bandages. 

Roberoh swung toward me. “My fa- 
ther,’’ he said swiftly. “He did not die. 
The surgeons — were loyal. We pre- 
tended he died, you see? Or the mob 
would have come again and killed him 
surely ’’ 

I was barely aware of Roberoh’s tense 
words. The interior of the Wanderer 
resounded with the distant commotion. 
Banning flashes — several screams now 
and doors slamming. The aroused pas- 
sengers were screaming with terror — 
screams that turned ghastly with agony 
as the bandits struck them down. 

“They’ve killed Mac,’’ I said. “We’ve 
got to get to the Control Turret.’’ 
Oncoming footsteps thudded in the 
corridor under us as we went to the 
catwalk. A figure was coming up the spi- 
ral. I turned sternward. We ran some 
thirty feet on the catwalk, then went 
up another incline to the upper deck. 
Forward on the turret bridge, I saw 
Chief Navigator Collins. He had a 
Banning gun in each hand. 

“Halory!” he shouted. “Halory — 
Lord, what’s happening?” 

The aged President Velah stumbled 
as Roberoh and I gripped him, half 
carrying him. Obviously he was numbed 
by terror, and by the pain of his wounds. 

“What is this?” he muttered in Eng- 
lish. “What is this going on ?” 

“You’re all right,” I said. “Just a 
little further — hurry ” 



14 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



My arm was around Normah, guid- 
ing her. From Green’s helio cubby, 
Wavvy came dashing at us. “I sent a 
call for help,” he shouted. “Contacted 
the Interplanetary Patrol cruise ship. 
It’ll come in a few hours.” 

FROM ACROSS the starlit deck a 
shadow rose up. A Banning gun spat 
its sizzling heat-ray, drilled Green and 
ended with a violet-red shower of sparks 
up on the metal dome-casing. Wavvy 
flung up his arms silently and went 
down. It was Dr. Blake who had drilled 
him. I saw the running figure heading 
sternward — and I didn’t miss. My heat- 
stab went through him, so clean and 
swift a drilled little hole that, though 
he was dead, his body of its own mo- 
mentum seemed to keep on running with 
buckling legs. Then his head crashed 
against a metal ventilator. 

We shoved the numbed President into 
the Turret and slid its metal door-slide. 
Captain Jaquero had locked the controls 
and came running at me. “Halory,” be 
gasped, “murder — death everywhere on 
my ship — are we all who have sur- 
vived ?” 

Except the traitors. I could not doubt 
it. Ruthlessly, the passengers and all 
our loyal crew had Been killed. And 
here in the Turret there were only the 
Captain, Collins, and I ; the President, 
Roberoh, and Normah. I had taken 
Normah and her father to a side couch 
across the circular little Control Room. 
The bulls-eye windows gave us a vista 
in every direction of the starlit ship. 
The forepeak — empty save for the crum- 
pled figure of the lookout lying welter- 
ing beside his electro-telescope — the nar- 
row, empty side-decks between the Tur- 
ret and the dome-sides — and sternward, 
along the empty star-deck where the fig- 
ures of Green and Dr. Blake lay 
sprawled. 

Then from the dull glare of Venus- 
light at the stern, a figure with a raised 



handkerchief was slowly advancing. It 
was Graeff. 

“Do not fire,” he called. “Will you 
have a truce so that we may talk? It 
may save your lives.” 

Our microphone picked up his voice 
and amplified it in the Turret. The 
bulls-eye sternward was partly open. 
Chief Navigator Collins stood there and 
raised a handkerchief. 

“Very good,” Graeff said. “I will 
trust you.” 

He had stopped, but again he ad- 
vanced, his long cloak swinging with his 
aged, tottering step. In the center of 
the deck, again he paused, and I saw 
him straighten from his bent, decrepit 
posture. It was a startling metamor- 
phosis — the fellow was a skilled actor. 
His face had been altered by the dis- 
guiser’s art. He was still old-looking 
of countenance as he stood grinning at 
us in the starlight. But his bent body 
had unlimbered ; his sagging shoulders 
were squared ; his legs straightened so 
that here was a burly fellow as tall as 
myself. 

“By the Gods ” Collins muttered. 

At the open bulls-eye, the angry Cap- 
tain roared, “You damned murderer — 
what do you want?” 

“I am Talone,” the fellow said. “No 
murderer.” He grinned sardonically up 
at us. “This is warfare, not murder. 
There is a distinction, even if little of 
difference. I come for President Velah.” 

“Well, you don’t get him,” I said. 
Behind me I was aware of the wounded 
old President coming forward, cou- 
rageous despite his confusion and his 
pain. But I shoved him back. 

“Keep him away from the window,” 
I warned Roberoh. “Keep Normah over 
there.” 

“Oh, it is you, Halory,” Talone was 
saying. “So you are yet alive? I speak 
with Captain Jaquero.” 

“Say what you wish and have done,” 
the Captain shouted. 



VOYAGE 13 



15 




The Hash of my Banning gun died in a smother of sparks as the shadowy 
attacker ducked behind a metal bulkhead. 



“Thank you. I demand Velah, Do 
you think I would permit him to reach 
Great London and protest me at the 
Interplanetary League?” 

THEY HAD smuggled the wounded 
Velah on board to save his life. But it 



was true also that if he appeared alive 
in Great London before the League, by 
treaty, all the Planetary Governments 
would send an armed Interplanetary Pa- 
trol to Venus — to take over the minis- 
tration of the Free State, guaranteeing 
Velah’s government and his personal 




16 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



safety. There could be no conquest by 
Talone, no crooked subsequent election 
of ijiim later, as of course he planned. 

“Well that’s what we’ll do,” the Cap- 
tain roared. “And jail you and your 
murderers.” 

"You jest with me. Captain,” Talone 
retorted. “I have the ship. Your con- 
trols in the Turret — how can you shift 
the rocket jets when my men below are 
shifting them by the manual levers? 
Don’t you see the heavens swinging al- 
ready ?” 

I was aware of it. Over our stem 
Venus was slowly mounting; the great 
blazing black firmament was swinging. 

“I offer you life,” Talone was sayixg. 
“I can starve you there in the Turret. 

I can shut off your air-renewers ” 

"That’s a lie,” I murmured to Rob- 
eroh. "We have pressure equalizers and 
emergency air renewers here in the Tur- 
ret. The whole system independent of 
the rest of the ship.” 

“We’ll drill any man who comes near 
us,” the Captain roared. “Go back. 
We’ve had enough of your talk.” 

"Then I will just say I can navigate 
from below by disconnecting your con- 
trols,” Talone retorted. “Already I 
have done that. We are returning to 
Ambelah. But I offer you life. If you 
toss out your weapons now, I will put 
you on an asteroid. Little kings to rule 
all you survey.” 

"By the Infernal — go back from the 
deck, you smidge,” the Captain roared. 
“I will parley no more with a murderer.” 
Still grinning, Talone raised his white 
handkerchief with a derisive flaunting 
gesture and backed away. I barely saw 
his other hand go under his cloak. I 
had no time to shout a warning, or even 
to move. From beneath Talone’s cloak, 
a flash spat through the fabric — the flash 
of an electronic spray gun. At our Tur- 
ret window its lurid, blue-green bolt 
struck with a shower of sparks. Dimly 
I was aware of the Captain and Collins 



as they fell. I was close behind them. 
Not directly hit — but the aura of the 
bolt stunned me. All the world seemed 
bursting into a roaring glare of light 
which faded as I fell, with my senses 
whirling off into the soundless, black 
abyss of unconsciousness. 

HOW LONG I was out I do not 
know. I recovered consciousness lying 
upon the Turret couch, with Normah 
bending over me. As I stirred, and my 
eyelids fluttered up, her fingers felt them. 

“Oh,” she murmured. “You’re all 
right now?” 

My head was roaring, but my strength 
came rapidly. President Velah was in 
a chair across the Turret. The white- 
faced Roberoh helped me to my feet. 
On the Turret floor-grid. Captain 
Jaquero and Collins lay with their 
clothes charred upon them. Both were 
dead. 

“I bolted the bulls-eyes,” Roberoh was 
saying. “No one has come to the deck. 
Oh, I am so glad you did not die.” 

He was grim with terror as he held 
the pallid Normah against him. In the 
chair his wounded old father seemed 
dazed. Roberoh was only a boy really; 
with me unconscious he had felt himself 
here alone, so that now with a rush of 
relief he clung to me. 

The star-gazer’s deck outside our 
bolted bulls-eyes was empty. Through 
the glassite plates of the enclosing dome 
I could see the black firmament. We 
were still in the cone of Venus’ shadow. 
The great crescent of the planet lay now 
in advance of our bow. Talone had 
turned us, shifted the rocket jets so that 
with full drive and gravity added we 
were heading back. 

The audiphone in the Turret buzzed. 
I jumped for it. 

“This is Talone,” the microphonic 
voice said. “Shall we talk again ? Will 
you starve? Or shall I shut off your 
air?” 



VOYAGE 13 



17 



“You can’t,” I said. “We have emer- 
gencies here.” 

Talone knew that he could not risk 
an assault now upon the Turret. The 
aluminite walls and the bulls-eyes would 
resist his weapons. If we fired out of 
the ports, some of his attacking party 
undoubtedly would be killed. 

But of what use for us to keep alive, 
imprisoned here until the Wanderer was 
racked at Ambelah? Talone’s men 
would surround the ship and starve us 
out. Or, with the ship abandoned, blow 
us into Eternity. 

He recognized my voice. “Oh — it is 
you, Halory? Are you yet alive? Will 
you stay there, or disarm and let me 
maroon you on an asteroid?” 

I slammed the connection, and turned 
to Roberoh. The beginnings of a plan 
were in my mind, and as I told it to 
Roberoh, he listened with dropped jaw. 
It was so desperate a plan that Normah 
gasped, • 

“No — no, please!” 

“You’ll never get down there,” Rob- 
eroh murmured. “They’ll see you.” 
“Well I can try,” I said. I grinned 
at him. But in truth I was as desper- 
ately tense as himself. “What else is 

there to do? If tliey — seize me ” 

“ICill you,” Normah corrected. 

“All right — if they kill me, you’ll be 
no worse off here.” 

As one of the ancient philosophers 
said, “Desperation doth make heroes of 
us all.” I felt like that. When one is 
sure he is going to die it takes no cour- 
age to try and stay alive. Heaven knows, 
in all my eight years flying the star- 
ways, never had I had occasion to jump 
into Space from my vessel. But the 
occasion was here now. 

THE EMERGENCY air-suits were 
hung in a closet of the chartroom. I 
drew one out — a double-shell of fab- 
ricoid, with the Erentz pressure equal- 



izing current circulating between the in- 
ner and the outer layer. With Roberoh 
watching me — and Normah white and 
silent peering with her sightless eyes — I 
donned the suit. From feet to neck it 
encased me with its black baggy folds. 
The mechanism pack was a great lump 
on my back, with the goggled helmet 
hinged back behind my head. For 
weapons there was a hook with a length 
of wire hung at my belt, and a knife 
stuck there. 

With gloved hand, I clapped Roberoh 
on the back. “Good luck to us.” And 
I touched Normah’s sleek, blonde head. 

Neither of them answered. Roberoh 
moved the door-slide a little. For a 
second I stood peering at the deck. It 
was only a few feet from here to the 
incline opening leading below. With 
the feeling that a flash from some near-by 
shadow would end all my problems, I 
jumped the few feet and darted into the 
companionway. There was no flash. 
The descending spiral seemed empty. I 
passed the catwalk where Normah’s 
cabin door stood open — went down an- 
other flight to the main corridor. 

Still there was no encounter. A lit- 
tle further along I came upon a dead 
passenger; near the stern, the body of 
Mrs. Reynolds, the Matron, hung over 
a catwalk rail, her head grewsomely dan- 
gling with crimsoned slashed throat. 

It seemed a ship of the dead; silent, 
with just the purring hum of the Erentz 
current. I went down another little 
flight, knife in hand, silent as a cat on 
my rubberized soles. I was in the lower 
part of the hull now. The door to the 
lower Control Room, where the rocket- 
jet controls were located, stood open. 
As I stood silently peering I could hear 
the murmur of voices — Talone and his 
men who were gathered in there. 

I went down another half flight, into 
the dim little pressure chamber of the 
lower keel-fin. Triumph was within me 



Save levenUcenU a pack! Try Avalon Cigarette*! Cellophane wrap. Union made. 



18 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



now. Nothing could stop me from my 
purpose. Talone and his men were rois- 
tering in the sliifter-room, befuddled now 
by alcohol so that they had left the upper 
part of the vessel unguarded, secure in 
the belief that none of us would dare 
venture from the Turret. 

The pressure chamber was almost 
wholly dark. The lower glassite trap 
was closed. I peered down through it 
at the vast starry abyss of the firmament. 
It took me no more than a minute to 
adjust my helmet and start the suit 
meclianisms. The suit bloated with air ; 
my little pressure current hummed in 
my ears. 

Tlie pumps of the pressure chamber 
were at the side of the wall. In ten 
minutes, with the bulkhead door to the 
hull closed, I could have emptied the 
little chamber of its air. But Heaven 
knows I had no need to do that now. 
With the manual lever, cautiously, I 
opened the lower trap about an inch. 
The ship’s air whined as it began going 
out — the interior pressure forcing it out 
into the vacuum of Space. 

At the inch-wide slit I knelt, brac- 
ing myself against the downward rush 
of air. I sucked, whined, then howled 
as I slid the port a little farther. I was 
almost flattened now by the downward 
pressure. All the air in the ship) — save 
only the hermetic, independent Turret 
— had egress here. The pressure of it 
had me almost pinned over the slit. I 
saw my danger, twisted and slid the big 
port wide. 

THERE WAS a roar — a giant, tum- 
bling torrent of wind, like water surg- 
ing under pressure in a pipe— a cata- 
clysm of outward rushing air. No doubt 
in every corner of the vessel the suck- 
ing draft and lowering pressure were at 
once apparent. And here at the open 
port it was a maelstrom. There was a 
second when I thought I would be hurled 
down against the casement of the port, 



my helmet to be smashed and make an 
end of me. Then I was blown down 
through the center of the opening — 
hurled outward, down into Space ! 

My first sensation was a nauseous 
feeling of falling. But in a moment it 
was gone. In soundless emptiness, I 
felt nothing — saw myself poised, the 
great, black dome of the firmament a 
vast enclosing shell, everywhere gem- 
strewn. But close over me — a hundred 
feet away perhaps — ^the hull of the IFan- 
derer loomed sleek, shining with star- 
light. The torrent of air was pouring 
out of its lower port, but so instantly 
dissipating into the vacuum that already 
I was beyond its force. I had blown a 
hundred feet, still moving with small 
momentum. I saw the ship drifting 
away, and desperately threw from me 
the heavy magneto shoes designed to 
hold a man against the ship’s outer skin. 
I still moved. But the gravity of the 
vessel was checking my velocity. 

Within a minute I was poised. Then 
I began falling back, rising toward the 
ship. I had had a sidewi.se, diagonal 
thrust when the mass of the heavy boots 
left me. It balanced with the IVan- 
derer’s gravity pull so that my move- 
ment now was a curve — an elipse, with 
the vessel at one of its foci. 

I was a tiny satellite — and the Wan- 
derer my greater world. It was a dizzy- 
ing experience, for slowly I was turn- 
ing upon an axis of my own, so that all 
the firmament and the vessel seemed 
shifting. Within a minute I had swung 
up over the upper dome, where I could 
see the Turret and its upper little pres- 
sure port at the dome-peak. Then my 
orbit took me down the other side, and 
again under the hull. The port I had 
opened was a black rectangle, with the 
air still an outpouring maelstrom. And 
as I stared, a bloated figure like my 
own came hurtling out. It was Talone. 
Of all his roistering fellows, only he 
had had the knowledge and the pre.sence 
of mind to seize an air-suit and don it. 



VOYAGE 13 



19 



Doubtless he had intended to ding 
within the ship, but had been blown out. 

At all events he was here. He, too, 
broke the rush of velocity that would 
have carried him oflf into depths of 
space. Now he was another little satel- 
lite like myself. He was closer to the 
vessel, revolving slightly more swiftly, 
and with a more nearly circular orbit. 
I stared down at him as he swung past 
some twenty feet under me. And doubt- 
less he stared up. Then he was gone 
ahead of me, while still I was only pass- 
ing over the turret. 

Within two rotations he had caught 
me again. It chanced that I was at 
the perihelion of my little orbit here. 
Talone was no more than ten feet from 
me. And suddenly I flung the heavy 
metal hook which was at my belt. It 
struck past his leg, and as I jerked the 
wire, the hook caught his ankle. My 
pulls on the wire hauled us together. I 
saw the naked knife blade gleaming with 
star-sheen as he clutched it in his gloved 
hand. But I had him at a disadvantage. 
He was coming at me feet first, floun- 
dering to twist himself around. 

My knife flashed; ripped his bloated 
suit. It deflated as his air puffed out; 
and then, suffocating, with bursting lung 
tissues and blood-vessels, he died. 

The Wanderer had only one satellite 
now — Talone and I, the dead and the 
living, our bodies merged as we rotated 



in our new, combined little orbit. 

ALL THAT WAS five years ago. I 
have little to add to my brief narrative 
of that ill-starred Voyage 13. I was 
able to cast my hook, pull myself down 
to the dome, and like a fly crawl flat- 
tened to the Turret’s upper pressure 
port. Roberoh had pumped out the air 
of the tiny upper chamber. I crawled 
in, closed the outer slide, and then he 
let in the air upon me. 

It was indeed a ship of death. But 
in the turret, with emergency air re- 
newers working, we remained for that 
day until the Interplanetary Patrol — 
seeking us after poor Green’s helio call 
for help — came and rescued us. 

Normah and I have been married for 
nearly five years now. Her father ap- 
peared before the League in protest at 
Talone’s Government. But he did not 
desire to renew his Presidency; he was 
shattered in health. The Venus Free 
State had a fair election, with the In- 
terplanetary League presiding, so that 
no duplicate of Talone could come into 
power. 

The Venus Free State is talking now 
of a union with the great Anglo-Saxon 
Alliance of Earth. Normah and I are 
interested in that, because in our own 
small way already we have accomplished 
it. Our little son seems to combine the 
best of both his parent worlds. We are 
very proud of him. 




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|r 5 SOPER- 1 
KEEN SHAVHIfi 
kl EDGES FOR 



20 




THE 

SECRET 



by Clifton 



Two surveyors 
— stumble on 

GLOBE with its tricky star’s- 
eye view makes a world mighty 
compact, particularly that Inter- 
world Explorer’s replica of Mars. You 
thing in your lap, place a 
thumb on the dot labeled “Base City, 
American Mars’’ and your little finger 
is almost over to Point Departure, King 
George Province. There’s nothing in 



My lead buggaioo slipped suddenly, slid, and vanished nose-Srst into that 
tangle of canaH-vines, headed for the ground half a mile below 




21 



OF THE Canali 

B. Kruse 

mapping Mars* ancient secret — the Canali 
the Door through which the Martians fled. 



between but the usual crisscross canali; 
although the map publishers very con- 
scientiously drew an imaginary bound- 
ary several hundred miles long, dividing 
the territory with mathematical equality 
between the holdings of Great Britain 
and the United States. It’s a pretty 
sight — on the globe map! 

Sidney Berkowitz caught my eye, and 
I thought the grin on his leatherish tan 
face meant that he felt the same as I 
about the commissioner’s orders. Then 
we both turned back to face J. T. Sev- 
erance, Commissioner-General of Amer- 
ican Mars, and nodded solemnly. Sure 
we would go. Weren’t we certified as 
civil engineers? 

Commissioner-General J. T. Seve- 
rance smiled with relief. “The English 
engineers are setting out from Point De- 
parture in exactly twelve hours. Their 
routine will be identical with yours. 
You’ll map the route along Canali 219, 
408 and 17B, and somewhere along the 
latter you will meet. That’s all there 
is to it. Except, of course, as you may 
record chance observations of unusual 
mineral outcroppings, oases and the 
like.’-’ 

As simple as that to the officials. Or 
as Sidney Berkowitz phrased it, “The 
bigwigs of American Mars and King 
George Province are bending over back- 
wards to fulfill every quiddity of the 
territorial treaty. Only we are elected 
to be the backs that do the bending.’’ 



“Us and the English boys from Point 
Departure,’’ I added. “Now, come 
along and let’s get out camping supplies 
and a flock of buggaroo !’’ 

In a way the project ahead of us 
looked monotonously pleasant. It would 
take us at least thirty days of slow crawl- 
ing across endless red plains, measuring 
and map making and so on, before we 
would meet the Englishmen and, accord- 
ing to plans, be picked up by a rocket- 
eer somewhere along Canali 17B. The 
pay would be sufficient to bring us back 
to Earth where the air is thick enough 
to carry planes and there is such a thing 
as rain. Rain — that’s the thing we miss 
down here on Mars, where a bathtub 
of water (if there was such a thing!) 
would be wortli its weight in illumium. 

Sidney stood for a minute scrutiniz- 
ing the four buggaroo I had obtained. 
Two were already loaded with supplies, 
and an attendant was strapping on the 
sun-shaded seats of the others we were 
to ride. A buggaroo isn’t much for 
looks, but it’s a native of Martiat^ des- 
erts and can stand more heat and dry- 
ness than any other living thing. About 
eight feet long, and half as high, their 
grub-shaped bodies completely covered 
with chitonous plates, they creep over 
the hot sands on their dozen stumpy 
legs with the grace and speed of a cater- 
pillar. 

The sun was moving up and across 
the purplish sky, making the smooth 



22 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



steppes south and east glisten with dry, 
shimmering heat. Each hoof rasped the 
soft, red-sand soil, and our canopied 
chairs rocked gently upon long, humpy 
backs. Behind us. Base City hovered 
in a deep valley, its half-hundred air- 
and-moisture-conditioned low buildings 
gleaming a scrubbed white in the steady 
sun glare. 

For the first week we kept to the 
right bank of Canali 219 — which in real- 
ity is a fifty-mile-wide depression filled 
with the waxy gorge-vine whose entan- 
gling stems, tough as metal, are so 
thickly massed that even a buggaroo 
unhampered with freight could some- 
times spend a couple of days twisting 
and squirming from one bank to the 
other. 

REALLY it’s these infernal canali 
that worry the Martian explorer. The 
spiny leaves are so tough a man can 
scarcely tear one in two, and the maze 
of intertwining stems have transformed 
these great cuts into dark, mysterious 
labyrinths. Every now and then you 
can see a break in the foliage, which is 
rounded smooth, as if it were a tunnel- 
way lx)ring its twisting, turning, course 
down and down into that river of gro- 
tesque vegetation. This is where the 
wild buggaroo, the shell-back rats and a 
thousand crawling insect-things live. 
When the polar thaws come, enough 
moisture seeps down along these ancient 
waterways to make the vines spring into 
renewed life. Then long, snakelike ten- 
drils creep out over the desert. The 
foliage becomes a bright, waxy green, 
and you can hear the sibilant wail of 
millions of insect-things. 

But no man goes prowling down into 
those cavelike hollows, even when 
they’re brown and holding back to their 
choked-up rivers. The canali are deep 
and filled with uncountable halls and 
caverns. On foot you couldn’t hope to 
find you way out again, even if the nip- 



pers didn’t bore into your flesh before 
you died of thirst. 

Naturally, at first I didn’t particularly 
notice the way Sidney took pains to 
keep his mount well away from the bank. 
Maybe he was a little ashamed of his 
fear. I don’t know. But anyhow it had 
to come out. Some place or other along 
the way we would have to cross over, 
and as our safari dragged along, I kept 
an eye for a chance narrowing of the 
gorge. It would, of course, depend upon 
what we should meet after reaching 
Canali 408 which we were supposed to 
follow. You see, we didn’t know for 
sure what was before us. This was un- 
explored territory really. It had been 
photographed by rocket ships, to be sure, 
but since by necessity they had to fly 
so high in order to retain control against 
Martian gravity, the finer details could 
not be ascertained. 

But I wasn’t worried myself. Except 
for the insects. Mars is as peaceful a 
land as you could hope to find, and the 
eternally clear skies assured wonderful 
accuracies in our maps. The job was a 
cinch, I thought, and one night remarked 
as much to Sidney. 

Right then I caught the first off-color 
slant of the expedition. The flare of 
the fire — made of old buggaroo bones 
and dead vines from the last thaw — was 
full on the young fellow’s face. His 
eyes were rounded strangely so that he 
looked actually afraid. 

“Jack.” he said. “I sighted the junc- 
tion in the telescope just before we made 
camp tonight. I — I meant to say some- 
thing about it before. We’ve got to 
cross a gorge pretty soon in order to 
reach Canali 408.” 

“Well, what of it ?” I turned my at- 
tention to slicing the canned vita-meat 
into our skillet. “Dry as it is, we can 
certainly make headway with torches 
and rope. We’re hauling nearly a mile 
of trail rope along, you know.” 

Sidney nodded nervously and then 
started in to lay out our map. We al- 



THE SECRET OF THE CANALI 



23 



ways spent an hour or so finishing them 
by lamplight every night. However, his 
words, or rather the look on his face and 
the odd tilt to his voice, had started me 
to thinking. I didn’t know much about 
this rather queer, close-mouthed chap 
except that he was a first-rate map man. 
Yet why should he shy this way at the 
canalif Sure, they were plenty danger- 
ous; full of dens and sometimes alive 
with scaly, crawling, biting things. But 
they could be crossed. The leader would 
go ahead, dragging a rope behind him 
and holding a torch. The flames would 
sizzle some of the dry stuff and scare 
off the worst of the insects. When a 
big enough cavern down in the maze was 
located, the rest of camp would follow. 
Then the leader would strike out again, 
feeling his way down and around. Of 
course it was w'eird. The mass of metal- 
like vegetation shut out every vestige 
of light, and there was always a queer, 
musty stench. Too, when you stood 
still and listened, the sounds of thou- 
sands of scurrying claws would make 
the stiff, wiry stuff rasp and whistle as 
though a wind were tearing through the 
gorge. There were often sudden drops, 
and every foot of the way had to be 
tested, lest a heavy mass suddenly give 
way, plunging the venturer into a dark 
well filled with greedy vermin. Still, 
with reasonable precaution, Sidney and 
I with our four buggaroo ought to cross 
in one day. 

WE COMPLETED our map work 
that night in silence. Sidney was nerv- 
ous, and a couple of times got up to go 
make sure our four buggaroo were rest- 
ing peacefully. I don’t think my attitude 
was anything to ease him, and it was 
evident that he was aShamed of his fears. 
His lean, boyish face was set with a 
grim sort of determination, as though 
he was fighting some terrific battle in- 
side his own mind. My impulse was 
to cheer him up — maybe make light of 
the ordeal of crossing a canali way out 



here in the unexplored wastes — and yet 
something held me back. Maybe I’ve 
been too long in the desolate places of 
the Solar System. In twenty years of 
engineering service for the Department 
of Interplanetary Colonization, I’d spent 
less than two years altogether on fur- 
loughs back to Earth. Sidney Berko- 
witz was still in his twenties, and the 
six months he’d spent on Mars was his 
only interplanetary experience save, of 
course, the necessary training period at 
the Moon Caves Station. 

At any rate, we broke camp early the 
next morning and after a two hours’ 
crawl came to a hump of a hill which 
afforded us clear telescopic views of 
hundreds of square miles of bleak sand- 
duned territory, darkened by great 
streaks of lesser catiali branching out 
from the huge junction of 219 and 408. 
The thing to do was to chart a likely 
route whicli would carry us across to 
the bank of Canali 408 with the least 
amount of intervening vine-filled gorges. 

Even Sidney couldn’t overlook the 
impressive significance of the scene. 
Millions of years in the past, before the 
manlike intelligent Martians had been 
wiped out, this had been a magnificent 
center of rich, moisture-retaining val- 
leys. As an engineer I thrilled at the 
sight. Both 219 and 408 were well over 
four miles in depth, representing a proj- 
ect of inconceivable vastness. Those old 
Martians had built for eternity, and it’s 
always been a mystery what happened to 
them. Now, of course, the thick, chok- 
ing wax-vines fill every square incli. 

“At the juncture over there,’’ I said, 
“who knows what lies at the bottom? 
Maybe the remains of an ancient city 



Sidney shrugged impatiently, turning 
away to scan the terrain to the north. 
His tone was succinct. “Over that way 
seems the best. Only three gorges, fairly 
narrow ones too.” 

I agreed with his choice. We could 
reach the first by midday. Night should 



24 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



find us camping on a narrow island of 
sand between the first and second gorges. 
Within two days we should be safely 
along our way, plodding the desert be- 
side magnificent, seventy-five-mile-wide 
408 . 

Sidney, tight-lipped, grimly efficient, 
was frankly relieved when I insisted on 
breaking trail through the first gorge. 
Nevertheless I could sense that he was 
afraid — not the abject fear of a coward, 
but rather the dread of one who know- 
ingly faces a horror which sometime in 
the past had made its ugly mark upon 
his memory. 

We wound dovra, twisting and 
squirming, and with the imprisoning sea 
of leathery, rope-stemmed plants fairly 
singing in our ears from the startled 
protests of the insects. A half mile 
down and the cavernous breaks in the 
vegetation bec^une pitch dark. The air 
was foul with the pollution of bony, 
pincer-bearing things that somehow 
managed to thrive in such a dismal 
world. The flickering torch scattered 
eerie shadows and was reflected by in- 
numerable watchful eyes. At intervals, 
Sidney would follow the rope I dragged 
after me, his own torch swinging over- 
head as the ungainly buggaroo seemed 
to glide in and around and down, like 
giant worms threading through a mag- 
nificent network of underground tunnels. 

W'e never touched ground, evert at 
the bottom of these smaller canali. The 
crazy growths were too thick for that. 
It was like treading upon a constantly 
undulating matting, and frequently a 
lurching buggaroo would send one of us 
sprawling into a snaky network of vines. 

IT WAS DARK when we reached 
the desert between the first two of the 
lesser canali. Sidney made camp with 
more than his usual energy. Once I 
even fancied there was a grin of tri- 
umph on his thin, tight lips, and the 
sight gave me hope for the young fel- 
low. I decided I had found out his se- 



cret fear. He might have had a narrow 
escape in one of these mazes near Base 
City soon after his coming to Mars. 
The terror of that experience probably 
gave him the willies when thinking about 
having to cross a gorge. That seemed 
the rational explanation. However, now 
that we had negotiated one without the 
slightest hitch, he had doubtless got back 
his nerve. 

I was dead wrong in this, as I was 
shortly to find out. I should have 
spoken my mind to Sidney, let him know 
that I liked his work and so on until 
I had won his confidence. It isn’t that 
I’m hard, but on the other hand, twelve 
years of nosing into strange, lonely, 
grewsome lands has made me forget to 
crack that shell which such a life just 
naturally wraps around a man. 

The second canali was far wider — 
and perhaps much deeper — than the first. 
It was a scant eighteen or twenty miles 
from bank to bank across the tops of 
the spinous leaves which made it look 
like a mighty, though motionless, green- 
ish-brown river. 

“My guess is that we can do it in 
eighteen hours,’’ I called to Sidney just 
before nosing my sluggish buggaroo into 
what I hoped was a likely hole. 

“Be careful. Jack,” he yelled back, and 
there was a queer ring to his voice. 

At that moment my slinking buggaroo 
took a nose drop for half the length of 
her body, nearly pitching me into an- 
other yawning hole, so that it was all I 
could do to pay out the trail rope and 
keep my torch upright. We kept drop- 
ping at close intervals, too — a point I 
didn’t like, because it suggested that this 
canali might be of more than average 
depth. For this reason, I cut down my 
lead so that if anything should happen, 
Sidney would be near enough to effect 
a rescue before the nippers could get to 
me. Even a sure-footed buggaroo might 
plunge through the insecure matting and 
down a precipice. Of course, the forest 
of rope-stems would break our fall, but 



THE SECRET OF THE CANALI 



25 



the loss of a torch could easily prove 
fatal. 

The noise of insects seemed unduly 
loud. Several times, when he had caught 
up with me, Sidney remarked on this. 
However, I assured him that it was due 
to the unusual depth of the gorge. 

"But suppose the opposite bank is as 
steep as this?” Sidney questioned once. 
"The buggaroo might jiot be able to 
scale back up.” 

"In that case we’d just have to work 
our way along, letting the lead bugga- 
roo nose out a trail. Eventually she’d 
find some sort of tunnel that the wild 
of her kind had made.” 

“But we couldn't camp down here!” 
Sidney exclaimed. 

I didn’t answer that one. I might 
have told him of the time a party of us 
had spent four days and nights feeling 
our way out of one of tlie big caiiali. It 
wasn't a pleasant story. Life down here 
is good for as long as the torches hold 
out. The nippers can see in the dark. 
You can’t. They’re afraid of fire, but 
when the fire is gone the billion insect 
jaws are clamoring for moist, human 
flesh. 

Twelve hours had gone by when we 
reached a level which seemed to indicate 
that we had touched the bed of the an- 
cient waterway. I was b^inning to 
feel a keener sympathy for poor Sid- 
ney’s fears by this time. The worst half 
of the crossing was still ahead of us, 
and even if we didn’t run up against an 
insurmountable precipice, there was only 
a slim chance of getting out again with- 
out having to give the buggaroo a rest. 
The weird beasts had had a hard time 
of it. We had scrambled down well 
over a mile — maybe two — and the climb 
ahead of us would tax their strength to 
the breaking point. 

WE H.^D COME into a sort of clear- 
ing like a vast cathedral with a matted 
ceiling a hundred feet overhead. All 



about us the smooth, hard vines, some 
of them a dozen feet in thickness so 
near the nourishing ground, rose in gi- 
gantic arcs to support the incredible mass 
high overhead. This far down, where 
never the slightest shaft of sunlight had 
ever penetrated, the choking stuff was 
as pale as opal and so polished with its 
waxy excrescence that the reflection 
from the torches was almost dazzling. 

I watched Sidney’s face closely when 
I suggested we had better give the bug- 
garoo a few hours’ rest. He merely 
nodded gravely. 

“What do you think is ahead of us?” 
he asked. 

“That’s why I’m calling a halt, Sid- 
ney. Oh, we’ll find a trail all right. 
Only it’s better not to force the beasts.” 

“I understand, Jack,” he said and 
began immediately to adjust the packs 
on our two freight carriers so that the 
buggaroo could flatten out on their 
smooth undersides. 

It was weird the way the insect sounds 
clamored from the darkness beyond this 
cavernous hold. It was Sidney and me 
they smelled, not the buggaroo with their 
armor-plated hulks. I didn’t blame the 
young fellow for standing there clench- 
ing his torch, and eyeing the splendid 
madness of great steel-strong vines 
which are like nothing which ever could 
grow upon faraway Earth. 

Suddenly a queer ^sping cry from 
Sidney caused me to jump. He was 
pointing to something over near the wall 
of vines. 

“It’s a machine,” he shouted. “Jack, 
look ! I see a wheel.” 

My first thought was that Sidney had 
started to crack under the strain. And 
then I stared close and began to fear 
for my own sanity. We crossed to- 
gether, keeping our torches swinging 
defensively. 

It was not a wheel, and yet the sight 
of that disk-shaped, translucent stone 
was nearly as shocking. Sidney in- 
stantly recognized the material as being 



26 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



a specimen of that marvelous, glass-clear 
steel which has been frequently found 
among the few ruins of the ancient Mar- 
tian civilization thus far discovered by 
man. About the edges of the disk were 
the faint remnants of what must have 
been corrugations. 

“It is work of the ancient Martians,” 
Sidney mumbled excitedly. “Wonder- 
fully preserved and ” 

“What of it?” I interruped sharply. 
“We’re not so many miles from the 
junction of two main canali. Isn’t it 
logical that somewhere hereabout there 
was once a vast city? Sidney, you’ve 
got to steady your nerves. This isn’t 
anything to get excited about.” 

“I know,” he agreed hastily. “But 
just the same I — well, listen. Jack. You 
think I’m yellow ! You think these con- 
founded mazes get my goat, don’t you?” 

“You don’t need to yell at me,” I an- 
swered. “You’re all right, fellow. I’ve 
l)een through this sort of thing before. 
I know how it gets under your skin — 
the darkness and lurking nippers and 
all. But I ” 

“No, I don’t mean that!” Sidney 
cried out. “Jack, I tell you it’s — it’s 
something else. I didn’t intend telling 
you. But now — well. I’ve got the feel- 
ing something’s going to happen. No, 
wait! It isn’t nerves. I know what 
I’m talking about. There’s something 
down here besides rotting ruins and in- 
sect hordes. I know !” 

“Sidney” — I put an arm about his 
shoulders and tried to make my voice 
soothing — “it's time we should be on 
our way. You won’t find any surviv-. 
iiig tag-ends of the old Martians down 
here — or anywhere else. Think about 
it calmly. Those scientist chaps have 
dug into fourteen cities, haven’t they? 
And every last one of them was buried 
under layers of rock which has been 
figured out as being more than a mil- 
lion years old. Whatever it was that 
destroyed the Martians did so com- 
pletely, and in the seventy years of man- 



kind’s conquest of the planet, there’s 
never been a live thing encountered save 
buggaroo, shell-back rats, canali-vine 
and insects.” 

SIDNEY smiled weakly and nodded 
his head, but the look in his eyes dis- 
turbed me. He was afraid now — really 
afraid. That wheel-shaped thing had 
undone all the strengthening effect our 
trip had accomplished, and I fancy my 
w’ords were not good to hear. Sidney 
probably thought I was angry with him. 
This was exactly what I wanted him to 
think, for the truth of it was, his queer 
antics had begun to work on my own 
nerves. There was nothing to be afraid 
of except the insect-things, I told my- 
self, and yet I kept looking first here 
and there as if expecting a million-year- 
old Martian to pop into view. 

So I drove the lead buggaroo on, 
paying out the trailing rope a full quar- 
ter mile beyond the cavern and, as near 
as I could calculate, straight across the 
vine-infested gorge. It was there some- 
where near the middle of the cut that 
I ran into the smooth wall of granite. 

How high it was I had no way of 
determining at once, since it was pos- 
sible to see only ten or twelve feet above 
my head. The breaks in the vegetation 
to either left or right were not particu- 
larly promising. Even the buggaroo, 
swinging her tiny head this way and 
that, seemed unable to pick out a suit- 
able passage, so I let Sidney have the 
signal to trail me on up. 

While waiting for him and the two 
pack buggaroo, I went up to the wall 
in order to examine it closely. It was 
built of tightly fitted blocks of perfectly 
squared stone. 

Obviously we had stumbled upon some 
ancient Martian structure in an unusual 
state of preservation. At the time, my 
chief interest was centered upon the best 
way to get beyond it. 

But if I’d expected Sidney to carry 
on again upon finding the wall I was 



THE SECRET OF THE CANALI 



27 



mistaken. To be sure he eyed it nar- 
rowly, but he kept his mouth closed. I 
could see that he was still bitter at me 
for refusing to encourage whatever fan- 
cies were torturing him. Very well, 
he’d have to get over it ! Once we were 
back no the desert trail there would be 
ample time to become friends again. So 
I headed my buggaroo to the left, urg- 
ing him to plow through, although there 
was scarcely a break in the huge trunks 
with their webs of smaller vines. 

The going was unusually slow be- 
cause, if possible, the entanglement be- 
came increasingly confusing. The beast, 
for some unaccountable reason, was be- 
ginning to balk and protested my prods. 
We were following the wall as nearly as 
we could. I had decided that if this was 
an ancient building we could probably 
break through into what might have 
served as a street or public square. Per- 
haps I had been keeping too close a 
watch on the wall. Anyway, when the 
tumble came, I was caught completely 
off guard. 

The buggaroo twisted, floundered and 
squirmed like a worm trying to regain 
her footing. The matting of vine-re- 
mains which covered the ground had 
suddenly given way. We were rolling 
down a sharp incline, the helpless bug- 
garoo far ahead of me. 

When I had scrambled to my feet — 
fortunately still clutching the precious 
torch — I saw that the fall had pitched 
us into a long, narrow cave. But a new 
horror beset me. 

The walls and floor of this place were 
of solid blocks of granite ! The maze of 
canali-vine was visible through the hole 
above. A dank, musty odor pervaded 
the wretched blackness, and to my per- 
plexity the perspiration which formed 
on my face did not instantly evaporate 
— an almost unheard of phenomenon on 
arid Mars ! 

Sidney reached the aperture -within 
minutes, for I had advanced scarcely a 
hundred feet. His face in the glow of 



the torches was dead white, and his eyes 
rolled as he stared up and down the 
fearful, dark tunnelway. 

“I’m all right,” I told him. “But how 
are we going to get this buggaroo back 
up ? That slope’s nearly perpendicular.” 

SIDNEY SHOOK his head in de- 
spair. “Jack, what is this? We’re in- 
side an ancient Martian structure.” 

“You’ve answered your question, but 
not mine,” I grumbled. “But listen, 
young felllow, you got me wrong back 
there.” 

“I understand. Jack,” he answered 
humbly. “You said I was scared out of 
my wits. Well, I am.” 

“There’s nothing unnatural about 
this, Sidney. If we were a pair of arche- 
ologists instead of government map 
makers ” 

“Jack,” he interrupted hurriedly. “I 
see a light! Far down the tunnel. It 
isn’t a reflection of our torches either. 
See?” 

“It’s a likely way out,” I suggested 
hurriedly. “There may be a break in 
the vines and what we see is sunlight.” 

“No,” Sidney’s voice rasped. “It’s 
the eternal flame — you know, the in- 
scriptions on the ruins all refer to it I I 
tell you. Jack, the ancient Martians 
didn’t die!” 

“What do you think you’re talking 
about, fellow? Sure, the Martians are 
dead. They’ve been dead for over a mil- 
lion years.” 

“I don’t mean their civilization on 
this planet. Listdn, Jack. I’ve studied 
the archeological reports of the ruined 
Martian cities ever since I was old 
enough to read. We can’t interpret the 
carvings, but all the scientists are agreed 
that the Martians worshipped fire — not 
ordinary fire and not the Sun either.” 

“I know those stories, Sidney. It’s 
still a mystery. But you can lay your 
bets that no matter what they believed, 
they sure aren’t around any more. I ad- 
mit that the facts all point to their 



28 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



checking out at some pretty definite 
time. But nobody knows why or how. 
So don’t be ” 

“I’m not mad. I’ve studied those in- 
scriptions myself. Jack. And another 
thing — you've got to admit the Mar- 
tians a million years ago were further 
advanced in engineering than Earthman 
is today, with the single exception of 
rocketry. A million years ago they 
achieved something — something that had 
to do with that sign which stands for the 
eternal flame. Put all the facts together. 
There had to be a reason for the simul- 
taneous exodus of every intelligent being 
on the globe. It wasn’t because Mars 
was dead. We know that. Today the 
planet is supporting over ten thousand 
Earth immigrants and could easily sup- 
port ten times that number.’’ 

I tried to get him to forget his fan- 
tastic dreaming. Patiently, and with 
what information I possessed, I pointed 
out that the facts proved the ancient 
race did not survive. Those inscrip- 
tions, admittedly but half deciphered, 
were undoubtedly but a part of their 
religious faith despite the prevalence of 
what was presumed to be mathematical 
symlx)ls. 

“Look at the canali,” I urged. 
“They’re choked up and barren of intel- 
ligent life. We ought to know about 
that ourselves, Sidney — inscriptions or 
no inscriptions. It’s this loneliness of 
the wastelands and the poisonous air of 
the canali that have got into your blood. 
Now pull yourself together and let’s get 
this poor buggaroo back up out of this 
hole.’’ 

I had it in mind to move along the 
gorge toward that distant point of light, 
but certainly not through this narrow, 
dank tunnelway. If it really was a break 
in the vines permitting sunlight this far 
down, then we could find it. Suddenly 
I realized that the Sun wouldn’t be shin- 
ing at this hour. It must be night up 
there on the surface. Nevertheless, I 
didn’t let out a word to Sidney. For a 



full hour we worked, shoving and pull- 
ing on the lead buggaroo and finally got 
him out of the hole. The two pack 
beasts and Sidney’s mount were waiting 
patiently, their bodies crawling with the 
insect-thiiigs searching for a chance 
break in the armor-plate hides. My 
torch scattered them quickly, and I 
turned to call back down to Sidney to 
catch the rope and scramble on up. 

A KIND of cold, unbelieving horror 
gripped me. I was scared as I had never 
been before. The hole was no longer 
visible. The incline had somehow 
sprung back into place, and no amount 
of stamping could affect it. I tried call- 
ing down through the matting of dead 
vine bits. Sidney either did not answer 
or else he could not. 

I worked frantically, forcing the bug- 
garoo to nose into the matting. We 
worked a hole nearly three feet in depth 
before coming to a smooth plate of trans- 
parent steel. 

Never had the depths of the canali 
seemed so malignant. Their black and 
deathly gloom taunted me. I felt sick 
for the young fellow trapped down in 
that hideous tunnel. I’m not supersti- 
tious, and yet I kept thinking of the 
fatal look of his eyes, of the fear which 
had clamped down on him all along this 
trip. What, really, did young Sidney 
Berkowitz think he knew about the an- 
cient, long-dead Martians which even 
our finest scientists hadn’t been able to 
find out? 

I berated myself plenty, though 
mainly to keep up my courage. It was 
not that I was fearful for myself. I’ve 
been in worse spots than the bottom of 
an unexplored Martian canali before 
this. But Sidney Berkowitz w'asn’t 
much more than a boy. Until now I 
hadn’t known just how much he had 
come to mean to me. 

After three, or perhaps four, hours I 
gave up trying either to burrow down to 
him or get some sort of signal through 



THE SECRET OF THE CANALI 



29 



that buried plate of nearly transparent 
steel. I reasoned that Sidney should 
have been able to see my torch through 
that spot I had cleared of vine rubbish. 
Yet the plate remained dark and sound- 
less. To me this now meant one thing. 
The ancient trap had in some way killed 
Sidney and dashed out his torch the sec- 
ond it swung back up into place. 

There was nothing to do but go on. 
I was dead tired, but the buggaroo 
seemed sufficiently rested. I roped Sid- 
ney’s mount and the pack beasts in line 
and led off. The ceaseless chorus of 
scampering insect-things seemed to 
mock me. 

Far overhead it was daylight again, 
though of course I could not see it. 
Before me rose the smooth and slightly 
curved walls of a great building. As 
nearly as I could figure, I knew this 
must be approximately the location of 
that curious light we had sighted down 
there in the tunnel. How far up did 
this towerlike wall extend? Surely it 
was high enough to catch the rays of 
the Sun, or one of the tiny Martian 
moons, otherwise there was no logical 
explanation for that light. Maybe Sid- 
ney’s alive, I thought. At any rate I 
couldn’t go on until I had found him 
either dead or alive. 

That day I labored as I had never 
labored before. The buggaroo snorted 
and moaned as I drove them up and 
around, taking foolhardly chances on in- 
secure footholds. Yet I never lost my 
bearings with regard to the incredible 
tower. Somewhere I’d find a break in 
the wall. There had to be one, I rea- 
soned, for it was, of necessity, over a 
million years old. 

Then the buggaroo broke through into 
the open. Above me shown the velvet- 
black and star-studded sky. Both moons 
were shining, illumining the vast sprawl 
of vine-choked canali with eerie light and 
fearsome shadows. The desert sands 
were beyond unaided vision ; thus I real- 
ized I had come along the gorge to the 



very junction of the two main canali. 
The thought was staggering, for nor- 
mally I would declare that such a clam- 
bering could never be made through so 
many miles of gorge-vine. 

Yet I had accomplished the fear-in- 
spired venture, even to making an un- 
believable spiral climb from gorge bed 
to surface at the very junction of two 
canali. I think I laughed a bit madly. 
Surely the sight of open sky was enough 
to unsteady any man. But what about 
Sidney Berkowitz? What about that 
ancient tower? 

The dome of transparent steel, half 
concealed by vine rubbish, was fully five 
hundred feet in diameter. It was like 
a huge telescopic eye pointing skyward. 
While the worn buggaroo slumped upon 
their undersides, I moved about the 
queer circle, swinging my torch and 
prodding with my boots as if to make 
sure this was real and not a dream. 

I THINK I must have slept. Prob- 
ably sheer exhaustion overcame me. At 
any rate, I remember awakening and 
finding myself sprawled upon one of the 
packs which was still strapped to one of 
the buggaroo. Also my torch was still 
flaming, although the ruddy Sun was 
already shining down in the eternally 
cloudless sky. 

No slightest break was evident in the 
great convex eye like a wonderful island 
of metal in an endless sea of treacher- 
ous vine. The supporting walls, a dozen 
feet in thickness, had been perfectly 
formed, though doubtless protected by 
the magnificent sea of vines. I marveled 
at the wonderful architectural achieve- 
ment which clearly surpassed any re- 
mains heretofore located. 

But what should I do? If Sidney 
Berkowitz were still alive it would be 
criminal to go off and leave him in that 
million-year-old dungeon. Be hanged to 
the governments, I concluded. I’ll stay 
here until I find the boy if Mars is never 
to be officially mapped! Nevertheless, 



30 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



it was not pleasant to think of going 
back down three — or more likely four 
— miles to the bottom of that gorge 
again. Yet there seemed no other 
course, since the top of the strange shaft 
was impervious to any tool I carried. 
So I eyed the patient buggaroo com- 
passionately and nerved myself for the 
ordeal. 

“We’re going back down, my fine, 
armor-plated slugs,” I said aloud. “Up 
— up now!” 

Then I stopped dead still. It was 
Sidney’s voice ringing in my ears. No, 
it wasn’t his voice exactly, for the sound 
of it seemed to come from within my 
own head. 

“Jack! Where are you. Jack?” he 
seemed to be calling. 

I was trembling with something worse 
than fright, and staring wildly this way 
and that. Once I opened my mouth to 
call out, but not a sound could I force 
through my throat. 

“Don’t wait for me. Jack. I know 
what I’m doing. I’ve discovered the 
secret of the eternal flame. The ancient 
Martians did not die !” 

I did yell then! The startled bugga- 
roo eyed me in dumb perplexity, for I 
was shouting up to the sky and out 
across the maddening rivers of gorge- 
vine. Surely I was mad. That was no 
voice I heard! .\nd yet it was Sidney 
calling out to me. I knew, and yet I 
couldn’t jxjssibly explain how I knew. 

“The ancient Martians conquered 
more than a dying planet. The secret of 
the eternal flame is here in this tower. 
Tliat’s why the archeologists were never 
able to grasp the meaning of the in- 
scriptions. To the Martians it was not 
a religion ; it was pure mathematics.” 

Sidney’s thoughts hammering through 
my own brain like a man’s low, yet ex- 
citedly quickened, voice talking to him- 
self! Or was I cracking under the 
strain? The dread canali bred a kind 
of madness in one, it is often whispered. 



though I had always scorned the many 
mysteries men have assigned to these 
monuments of the Solar System’s great- 
est engineers. 

“Sidney!” I called out. “If you can 
hear my voice, then answer me. Sid- 
ney. do you hear me?” 

But only the stupid buggaroo were 
disturbed by the beseeching cry of my 
voice. 

“Jack!” That unreal voice of Sid- 
ney’s rang through my head again. 
“You must hear me. I’ve discovered the 
secret of the living flame. Listen to 
me. Jack, wherever you are, for I have 
faith that for yet a while I can contact 
your mind. The Martians were wiser 
than men — far more advanced in science. 
Remember that. Jack. They sought to 
live, to achieve the ultimate meaning of 
life, not the limited existence of a not- 
yet-dead, but dying planet. They did 
that. Jack — and they live on in a bet- 
ter world than Mars, a better world 
than Earth. That’s how the race dis- 
appeared — through the doorway of the 
Flame! It crosses to another world — 
another Universe ! It’s pulling now, 
pulling me I — cities ” 

The voice faded to nothing. I stood 
there rubbing my head as though a ter- 
rific vibration had pounded every cell of 
my brain. The Sun was directly over- 
head now. Its shining rays fell straight 
down upon the wondrous dome. 

I fell back in awe before the ethereal 
flame which seemed to leap up from the 
huge eyepiece. There was something 
like a body there. I looked closely. 
With arms outstretched and his face 
smiling with a burning eagerness was 
Sidney. Only an instant I saw him and 
then he vanished. I don’t know whether 
he vanished away in infinite distance, 
or in infinite smallness. His image 
dwindled and was gone. Either might 
have given that effect. Something 
“pinged” softly. Then only the scutter 
of the vine insects remained. 



THE SECRET OF THE CANALI 



31 



A MONTH later I met the English 
engineers along Canali 17B. They were 
nice fellows and it was glorious to see 
a human being again. 

“But your companion,” they asked, 
“what happened ?” 

“The canali,” I answered quietly. 
"Lost while crossing two weeks out of 
Base City.” 

“Oh!” They were properly sympa- 
thetic. Then one of them added. “You 
know, friend, there’s something con- 



foundedly mysterious about those silly 
ditches. Awful lot of superstition crop- 
ping up, too, since these scientists have 
got so vociferous about the queer in- 
scriptions they find on the ruins. Some- 
where I heard or read something about 
these old Martian chaps outwitting na- 
ture, you know. Devilish things, these 
canali.” 

“There’s a lot,” I agreed, "those old 
Martians knew that mankind doesn’t, 
that’s true.” 




BEYOND THAT LIMIT ? 

THE great 200-inch telescope will, when completed, reveal no new facts 
concerning the planets, or the Moon. It cannot be used to observe the Sun; 
exposure to that heat would ruin it. That is not the field of that instrument. 

BUT today, out at the ultimate limit, where the greatest attainable power of 
the largest now-existant telescope, and the ultimate sensitivity of photographic 
plates is fading and blurred, there is a new effect building up. A new ratio that 
dwindles our Galaxy to tiny proportions. 

THE clear, crystalline sky of a winter night sparkles with an overwhelming 
number of stars. Yet in fact, that number is only some 3600, all that the human 
eye can see unaided. As a telescope of more and more power is used, the number 
of suns visible rises more and more swiftly, for we penetrate greater and greater 
volumes of space. 

BUT there is a limit. When our line of vision is long enough to include the 
whole galaxy, the number no longer increases so swiftly. But then, some thousand 
thousand thousand individual suns are visible! 

AND on those hyper-sensitive plates that catch those distant suns, other things 
appear. Globular clusters of thousands of suns in our Galaxy. And globular 
clusters of titanic galaxies, spinning round each other in a mighty system where 
500 or 1000 whole universes form a single tiny dot at the far, faint edge of visibility. 
Out there, where definition fades away in blurr, the number of galaxies is mounting 
at an ever-accelerating ratio. Already, at the edge of vision galaxies outnumber 
the individual suns of our Gala.xy. 

BEYOND that limit, beyond the vision of the 100-inch ? 



"DICK“ MERRILL’S 
STAR PERFORMANCE 



Eastern Air Lines aec pilot made 
the first non-stop flight from Lon- 
don to Floyd Bennett Field in 24 
hours, 20 minntes! Another Star 
Performance is the way whiskers 
fly with Star Single-edge Blades! 
Star Blade Division, Bklyn., N. Y. 



32 




Rule ^ 



The Martians took over New York City i ' 
after the manner of football victors r| 
since time immemorial, parading ’ i 
through the streets with their gro- i 
tesque, ten-legged zimpa mascot. 



A rale defeated Earth teams in the annual Earth-Mars 



football game — till a coach palled the prize bright 



trick of — quite literally — all time! 



Rule XV II I Each player on the 

respective teams must be able to present 
documentary evidence that he is of pure 
blood of the planet upon whose team he 
plays for an unbroken span of at least 
ten generations. Verification of the 
aforesaid documentary evidence and 



approval of the players upon this point 
shall be the duty of the Interplanetary 

Athletic Control Board. From the 

eligibility section of the Official Rule 
Book for the Annual Terrestrial-Martian 
Football Game. 

Year 2479 



33 




A Novelette by 

CLIFFORD D. SIMAK 



T he mighty bowl resounded 
to the throaty war cry of the 
Druzecs, ancient tribe of the 
Martian Drylands. The cry seemed to 
blast the very dome of the sky. The 
purple and red of the Martian stands 
heaved tumultuously as the Martian vis- 
itors waved their arms and screamed 
their victory. The score was 19 — 0. 



For the sixty-seventh consecutive year 
the Martians had defeated the Earth 
team. And for the forty-second con- 
secutive year the Terrestrial team had 
failed to score even a single T>o>nt. 

There had been a time when an Earth 
eleven occasionally did defeat the Red 
Warriors. But that had been years ago. 
It was something that oldsters, mum- 




34 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



bling in their beards, told about as if 
it were a legendary tale from the an- 
cient past. Evil days had fallen upon 
the Gold and Green squads. 

And again this year the pick of the 
entire Earth, the Terrestrial crack foot- 
ball machine, had been trampled under- 
foot by the smashing forward wall of 
Martians, slashed to bits by the fero- 
cious attack of the Red Planet back- 
field. 

Not that the Earth had not tried. 
Every team member had fought a heart- 
rending game, had put forth every ounce 
of strength, every shred of football sense, 
every last trickle of stout courage. Not 
that the Earth team was not good. It 
was good. It was the pick of the entire 
world, an All-Terrestrial eleven, selected 
on its merits of the preceding year and 
trained for an entire year under the men- 
torship of August Snelling, one of the 
canniest coaches the game had ever 
known. It was neither of these. It was 
just that the Martian team was better. 

Bands blared. The two teams were 
trailed off the field. The Martian vic- 
tory cry continued to rend the skies, 
rolling in wave after successive wave 
from leathern throats. 

The Earth stands were emptied qui- 
etly. but the Martians remained, 
trumpeting their prowess. When the 
Martians did leave the amphitheatre, 
they took over the city of New York 
after the manner of football crowds since 
time immemorial. They paraded their 
mascot, the grotesque, ten-legged zimpa, 
through the streets. Some of them got 
drunk on Martian bocca, a potent liquor 
banned by law from sale on Earth, but 
always -available in hundreds of speak- 
easies throughout the city. There were 
a few clashes between Martian and Earth 
delegations and some of the Martians 
were jailed. New York would be a bed- 
lam until the Martian Special, huge 
space liner chartered for the game, 
roared out of its cradle at midnight for 
the return run to Mars, 



IN THE editorial rooms of the Eve- 
ning Rocket Hap Folsworth, sports- 
writer extraordinary, explained it in a 
blur of submerged rage and admitted 
futility. 

“They just don't grow them big 
enough or strong enough on Earth any- 
more,” he declared. “We are living too 
damn easy. We’re getting soft. Each 
generation is just a bit softer than the 
last. There’s no more hard work to be 
done. Machines do things for us. Ma- 
chines mine ores, raise crops, manufac- 
ture everything from rocket ships to 
safety pins. All we got to do is push 
levers and punch buttons. A hell of a 
lot of muscle you can develop punching 
a button. 

“Where did they get the famous play- 
ers of the past? Of a couple, three hun- 
dred years ago, or of a thousand years 
ago, if you like?” Hap blared. “I’ll tell 
you where they got them! They got 
them out of mines and lumber camps 
and off the farms — places where you 
had to have guts and brawn to make a 
living. 

“But we got smart. We fixed it so 
nobody has to work anymore. There are 
husky Earth lads, lots of them — in Mar- 
tian mining camps and in Venus lum- 
ber camps and out on the Ganymede en- 
gineering projects. But every damn 
one of them has got Martian or Venusian 
blood in his veins. And Rule Eighteen 
says you got to be lily-pure for ten gen- 
erations. If you ask me, that’s a hell of 
a rule.” 

Hap looked around to see how his 
audience was taking his talk. All of 
them seemed to be in agreement and he 
went on. What he was saying wasn’t 
new. It had been said thousands of 
times by thousands of sports-writers in 
thousands of different v'ays, but Hap re- 
cited it after each game. He enjoyed 
doing it. He cliewed off the end of a 
yenus-weed cigar and w'ent on. 

“The Martians aren’t soft. Their 
planet is too old and exhausted and na- 



RULE EIGHTEEN 



35 



ture-ornery for them to be soft. They 
got brawn and guts and their coaches 
somehow manage to pound some foot- 
ball sense into their thick heads. Why, 
football is just their meat — even if we 
did teach them the game.” 

He lit his cigar and puffed content- 
edly. 

“Say,” he asked as the others stood 
in respectful silence, “has anyone seen 
Russell today ?” 

They shook their heads. 

The sports-writer considered the an- 
swer and then said, without emotion, 
“When he does show up, I’m going to 
boot him right smack-dab into the 
stratosphere. I sent him out two days 
ago to get an interview with Coach 
Snelling and he hasn’t showed up yet.” 
“He’ll probably be around next week,” 
suggested a copy boy. “He’s probably 
just sleeping one off somewhere.” 

“Sure, I know,” mourned Hap, “and 
when he does come in, he’ll drag in a 
story so big the chief will kiss him for 
remembering us.” 

COACH August Snelling delivered 
his annual after-the-Martian-game ora- 
tion to his team. 

“When you went out on the field to- 
day,” he told them. “I praised you and 
pleaded with you to get out there and do 
some of the tilings I taught you to do. 
And what did you do? You went out 
there and you laid down on me. You 
laid down on the Earth. You laid down 
on five hundred thousand people in the 
stands who paid good hard cash to see a 
football game. You let those big dumb- 
bells push you all over the lot. You 
had a dozen good plays, everyone of 
them good for ground. And did you 
use them? You did not! 

“You’re a bunch of lollipops. A good 
punch in the ribs and you roll over and 
bark. Maybe there’ll be some of you 
on the team next year and maybe there 
won’t. But if there are, I want you to 
remember that when we go up to Mars I 
AST— 3 



intend to bring back that trophy if I 
have to steal it. And if I don’t. I’ll stop 
the ship midway and dump you all out. 
And then jump out myself.” 

But this didn’t mean much. For 
Coach Snelling, ace of the Earth 
coaches, had said the same thing, in 
substance, to Earth teams after each 
Martian game for the last twenty years. 

TANTALIZING shadows, queer, 
alien shadows flitted in the ground glass 
of the outre machine. Alexis Andro- 
vitch held his breath and watched. The 
shadows took form, then faded, but they 
had held tangible shape long enough for 
Alexis to glimpse what he wished to see, 
a glimpse that filled him with a supreme 
sense of triumph. 

The first step was completed. The 
second would be harder, but now that 
the first was accomplished — now that he 
really had some proof of his theories — 
progress would be faster. 

Alexis snapped off the machine and 
stepped to a bowl. There he washed his 
hands. Shrugging into a coat, he 
opened the door and trudged up the 
steps to the street above. 

On the avenue he was greeted by the 
raucous cries of the auto-newsstands, 
“Earth loses 19 — 0. . . Read all 
about it. . . Extra. . . Extra. 
. .” repeating over and over the words 

recorded on the sound film within them. 

Customers placed coins in the slot, 
shoved a lever, and out came a paper 
with huge purple headlines and natural- 
color photo reproductions of the game. 

The vari-colored neon street lamps 
flicked on. Smoothly operating street 
machines slid swiftly down the broad, 
glassy pavement. Overhead purred the 
air-lane traffic. 

From somewhere came the muffled 
sound of the Drylands war cry as the 
Martians continued their celebration of 
victory. 

Alexis Androvitch walked on, un- 
mindful of the war cries, of the blaring 



36 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



newsstands. He was not interested in 
athletics. He was on his way to a gar- 
den to enjoy a glass of beer and a plate 
of cheese. 

RUSH CULVER, Wisconsin ’45, 
was struggling with calculus. Exams 
stared him in the face and Rush freely 
admitted that he was a fool for having 
chosen math instead of zoology. Some- 
how or other he wasn't so bright at 
figures. 

It was late. The other fellows in the 
house were asleep hours ago. A white 
moon painted the windows of the house 
opposite in delicate silver squares and 
rectaftigles. A night wind sighed softly 
in the elms outside. A car raced up 
State Street and the old clock in the 
music hall tower tolled out the hour 
with steady beat of bell. 

Rush mopped his brow and dug 
deeper into his book. 

He failed to hear the door of his room 
open softly and close again. He did not 
turn about until he heard the scuff of 
feet on the floor. 

A tall stranger stood in the room. 

Rush looked at him with something of 
disgust. He was dressed in purple 
shorts and a semi-metallic shirt that 
flashed and glinted in the soft rays of the 
desk lamp. His feet were shod in san- 
dals. His head was verging on the 
bald and his face was pale, almost as if 
he had resorted to face powder. 

“Just home from a masquerade?’’ 
asked Rush. 

The stranger did not answer at once, 
but stood silently, looking at the stu- 
dent. 

When he did speak, his voice was soft 
and slurred and his English carried an 
accent Rush could not place. 

“You will pardon the intrusion,’’ the 
stranger said. “I did not wish to dis- 
turb you. I merely wanted to know if 
you are Rush Culver, fullback for the 
Wisconsin football team.” 

“I have a good mind to lay one on 



you,” said Rush with feeling. “Almost 
three o’clock in the morning and me 
wrestling with math. Want to know if 
I’m Rush Culver. Want my autograph, 
maybe ?” 

The stranger smiled. “I hardly un- 
derstand,” he said. “I know nothing 
of autographs. But you are having trou- 
ble. Maybe I can help.” 

“If you can, brother,” declared Rush, 
“I’ll lend you some clothes so you can 
get home without being pinched. The 
cops in this town are tough on students.” 

The stranger walked forward, picked 
up the book, glanced at it and threw it 
aside. “Simple,” he said. “Elementary. 
This problem.” 

He bent over and ran a finger down 
the work slieet. His words came softly, 
in measured cadence. 

“It is this way. . . and this 
way. . . and this way ” 

Rush stared. “Say, it’s simple,” he 
chortled. “But it never was explained 
to me that way before. I can see how 
it goes now.” 

He rose from the chair and confronted 
the stranger. 

“Who are you ?” he asked. 

II. 

HAP FOLSWORTH snarled 
through his cigar at Jimmy Russell. 

“So you came back empty-handed,” 
he growled. “You, the demon reporter 
for the Evening Rocket. In the name 
of double-dipped damnation, can’t you 
ever do anything? I send you out on a 
simple errand. ‘Just run over to Coach 
Snelling,’ says I, ‘and get the line-up 
for the Earth team’. Any office boy 
could do that. And you come back 
without it. All you had to do was ask 
the coach for it and he would hand it 
to you.” 

Jimmy snarled back. “Why, you 
space-locoed tramp,” he roared, “if it’s 
as simple as that, go down and get it 
yourself. If you ever lifted yourself out 
of that easy chair and found out what 



RULE EIGHTEEN 



37 



was happening, instead of sitting there 
thinking up wisecracks, you might call 
yourself a newspaperman. I could have 
told you a week ago there was something 
screwy about this Earth team. All sorts 
of rumors floating around. How much 
news have we printed about it? How 
much has Morning Space-Ways and the 
Evening Star printed about it ? But you 
sit here and look wise and tell the world 
that Snelling is just using some high- 
powered psychology to get the Mar- 
tians’ goat. Making it appear he has 
some new material or some new plays. 
Say, that old buzzard hasn’t had a new 
play since the first spaceship blew up.” 

Hap snorted and rescued the cigar. He 
jabbed a vicious forefinger at the re- 
porter. 

“Listen,” he yelled. “I was a news- 
man when you were still in diapers. I’ll 
lay you five to one I can call up Snelling 
and have him agree to give us a list of 
players.” 

Silently Jimmy picked up the visa- 
phone set and handed it to Hap. 

The sports-writer set the dial for the 
field-house wave lengtii. A face ap- 
peared in the glass. 

“Let me speak to the coach,” said 
Hap. 

The glass went dead as the connec- 
tion was shifted. 

The face of Coach Snelling appeared. 

“Say, coach ” said Hap. But that 

was as far as he got. 

“Listen, Hap,” said the coach, “I’m a 
friend of yours. I like you. You’ve 
said some nice things about me when the 
wolves were out after my hide. If I 
had anything to tell anyone. I’d tell it to 
the Evening Rocket. But I haven’t any- 
thing to tell anyone. I want you fel- 
lows to understand that. And if you 
send any more of those high-powered re- 
porters of yours around I’ll just natu- 
rally kick them out on their faces. That’s 
a promise.” 

The phone went dead. 

Jimmy laughed at the bewildered stare 



in Hap’s eyes. 

“Pay up,” lie demanded. 

THE COACH’S office was empty 
and Jimmy was glad of that. It fitted in 
with his plans. 

He hadn’t liked the nasty light in the 
chief’s eyes when he had been told to 
get a list of the Earth’s new team. Noth- 
ing about how he was to get it. No sug- 
gestions at all, although it was under- 
stood that it couldn’t be gotten directly 
from the coach. Presumably some other 
means of obtaining it would have to be 
worked out. 

But while the chief had said nothing 
about how to get it, he had said plenty 
about what would happen if he returned 
without it. That was the way with 
editors, Jimmy reflected glumly. No 
gratitude. Just a hunk of ice for a 
heart. Who was it had given the Rocket 
a scoop on the huge gambling syndicate 
w'hich had tried to buy a victory for the 
Earth team? Who was it had broken 
the yam about the famous jewel-ship 
robbery off the orbit of Callisto when a 
governmental clique — which later went 
to the Moon penal colony — had moved 
Heaven and Earth to suppress the story ? 
Who had phoned the first flash and 
later written an eye-witness story that 
boosted circulation over 6,000 copies 
concerning the gang murder of Danny 
Carsten? No one other than James 
Russell, reporter for the Evening 
Rocket. And yet, here he was, chasing 
a team list with sulphurous threats 
hanging over his head if he failed. 

Jimmy tiptoed into the coach’s office. 
He wasn’t used to getting his news this 
way and it made him nervous. 

There were papers on the desk. Jimmy 
eyed them furtively. Maybe among 
them was the list he sought. With a 
quick glance about the room, he slith- 
ered to the desk. Rapidly he pawed 
through the papers. 

A footstep sounded outside. 

Moving quickly, the reporter sought 



38 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



refuge behind a steel locker that stood 
in one corner of the room. It was an 
instinctive move, born of surprise, but 
Jimmy, chuckling to himself, realized he 
had gained an advantageous position. 
From his hiding place, he might learn 
where the list was kept. 

Coach Snelling strode into the room. 
Looking neither to right nor left, he 
w'alked straight ahead. 

In the center of the room he disap- 
peared. 

The reporter rubbed his eyes. Snelling 
had disappeared. There was no ques- 
tion about that, but where had he gone? 
Jimmy looked about the room. There 
was no one there. 

Slowly he eased himself from behind 
the locker. No one hailed him. 

He walked to the center of the room. 
The coach had disappeared at just about 
that point. There seemed to be nothing 
unusual in sight. Standing in one spot, 
Jimmy slowly wheeled in a circle. Then 
he stopped, stock-still, frozen with aston- 
ishment. 

Before him, materializing out of noth- 
ing, was a faintly outlined circular open- 
ing, large enough for a man to walk 
through. It looked like a tunnel, angling 
slightly downward from the floor level. 
It was into this that Coach Snelling 
must have walked a few moments be- 
fore. 

With misgivings as to the wiseness of 
his course, Jimmy stepped into the 
mouth of the tunnel. Nothing hap- 
pened. He walked a few steps and 
stopped. Glancing back over his shoul- 
der he could see nothing but the blurred 
mouth of the tunnel behind him. He 
reached out his hands and they encoun- 
tered the walls of the tunnel, walls that 
were hard and icy-cold. 

Cautiously he moved down the tunnel, 
half-crouched, on the alert for danger. 
Within a few steps he saw another 
mouth to the tunnel ahead of him, only 
faintly outlined, giving no hint into what 
it might open. 



Momentarily he hesitated and then 
plunged forward. 

He stood gaping at the scene before 
him. He stood in a wilderness and in 
this wilderness, directly in front of him, 
was a football gridiron. Upon the field 
were players, garbed in Gold and Green 
uniforms, the mystery team of the Earth. 
On all sides of the field towered tall, 
gnarled oaks. Through a vista he could 
see a small river and beyond it blue hills 
fading into an indistinct horizon. 

At the farther end of the field stood 
several tents, apparently of skins, with 
rudely symbolic figures painted upon 
them in red and yellow. Pale smoke 
curled up from fires in front of the tents 
and even where he stood Jimmy caught 
the acrid scent of burning wood. 

Coach Snelling was striding across the 
field toward him and behind him trailed 
several copper-colored men dressed in 
fringed deerskin ornamented with claws 
and tiny bones. One of them wore a 
headdress of feathers. 

Jimmy had never seen an Indian. The 
race had died out years before. But he 
had seen pictures of them in historical 
books dealing with the early American 
scene. There was no doubt in his mind 
that he was looking upon members of the 
aboriginal tribes of North America. 

But the coach was close now. 

Jimmy mustered a smile. “Nice hide- 
out you have here, coach,” he said. “Nice 
little place for the boys to practice with- 
out being disturbed. That tunnel had 
me fooled for a while.” 

Coach Snelling did not return the 
smile. Jimmy could see the coach wasn't 
overjoyed at seeing him. 

“So you like the place?” asked the 
coach. 

“Sure, it’s a fine place,” agreed 
Jimmy, feeling he was getting nowhere 
with this line of talk. 

“How would you like to spend a few 
w'eeks here?” asked the coach, unsmil- 
ingly. 

“Couldn’t do it,” said Jimmy. “The 



RULE EIGHTEEN 



39 



chief expects me back in a little while.’^ 

Two of the brawny Indians moved 
forward, laid heavy hands on the re- 
porter’s shoulders. 

“You’re staying,” said the coach, “un- 
til after the game.” 

HAP FOLSWORTH stepped up to 
the editor’s desk. 

“Say,” he demanded, “did you send 
Russell out to get the team line-up?” 

The editor looked up. “Sure I did, 
just as you asked me to. Isn’t that petri- 
fied newshound back yet?” 

The sports-writer almost foamed at 
the mouth. “Back yet!” he stormed. 
“Don’t you know he never gets back on 
time? Maybe he won’t get back at all. 
I hear the coach is out after his blood.” 

“What’s the matter with the coach?” 

“Russell asked him if he was going 
to use the same three plays this year he 
has used for the last ten,” explained 
Hap. 

“I don’t know what I can do,” said 
the editor. “I might send one of the 
other boys down.” 

Hap snorted. “Mister,” he said, “if 
Russell can’t get the story, none of your 
other men can. He’s the best damn re- 
porter this sheet has ever had. But 
someday I’m going to kick his ribs in 
just to ease my feelings.” 

The editor rustled papers and grum- 
bled. 

“So he’s at it again,” he mused. “Just 
wait until I get hold of that booze-so^ed 
genius. I’ll pickle him in a jar of bocca 
and sell him to a museum. So help me, 
Hannah, if I don’t.” 

III. 

SOMETHING was holding up the 
game. The largest football crowd ever 
to pack the stadium at the Martian city 
of Guja Tant rumbled and roared its 
displeasure. 

The Martian team already was on the 
field, but the Earth team had not made 



its appearance. 

The game would have to start soon, 
for it must be finished by sundown. The 
Terrestrial visitors, otherwise, would 
suffer severely from the sudden chill of 
Martian twilight, for although the great 
enclosed stadium held an atmosphere un- 
der a pressure which struck a happy me- 
dium between air density on Earth and 
Mars, thus affording no advantage to 
either team, it was not equipped with 
heating units and the cold of the Mar- 
tian night struck quickly and fiercely, 

A rumor ran through the crowd. 

“Something is wrong with the Earth 
team. Rule Eighteen. The Board of 
Control is holding a conference.” 

A disgruntled fan grumbled. 

“I knew there was something wrong 
when the members of the Earth team 
were never announced. This stuff the 
newspapers have been writing about a 
new mystery team must be right. I just 
thought it was some of Snelling’s work, 
trying to scare the Martians.” 

His neighbor grumbled back. 

“Snelling is smart all right. But psy- 
chology won’t win this ball game. He’d 
better have something to show us today 
after all that’s been written about the 
team.” 

The Martian stands shouted wild bat- 
tle cries of the olden days as the Red 
Warriors went through their prelim- 
inary practice on the gridiron. 

About the stadium lay the colorful 
Martian city with its weird architecture 
and its subtle color blending. Beyond 
the city stretched the red plains, spotted 
here and there with the purple of occa- 
sional desert groves. The sun shone but 
dimly, as it always shone on the fourth 
planet. 

“Here they come,” someone shouted. 

The crowd took up the roar as the 
Earth team trotted out on the field, run- 
ning in a long line, to swing into sep- 
arate squads for the warming up period. 

The roar rose and swelled, broke, 
ebbed lower and lower, until silence 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



40 

reigned over the stands. 

A whistle shrilled. The officials 
walked out on the field. The two teams 
gathered. A coin flashed in the feeble 
sunlight. The Earth captain spoke to 
the referee and jerked his thumb at the 
north goal. The Earth team took the 
ball. The teams spread out. 

Earth was on the defensive. 

A toe smacked against the ball. The 
oval rose high into the air, spinning 
slowly. The Red Warriors thundered 
down the field. A Martian player 
cupped his arms, snared the ball. 

The teams met in a swirl of action. 

Players toppled, rolled on the ground. 
Like a streak of greased lightning, an 
Earth player cut in, flattened out in a 
low dive. His arms caught the ball car- 
rier below the knees. The impact of the 
fall could be heard in the stands. 

The teams lined up. The Martians 
thundered a bloodthirsty cry. The ball 
was snapped. Like a steel wall the 
Earth team rose up, smacked the Mar- 
tian line flat. The backfield went 
around the ends like thundering rockets. 
The carrier was caught flat-footed. Mars 
lost three yards on the play. 

The Terrestrial fans leaped to their 
feet and screamed. 

THE TEAMS were ready again. The 
ball came back. It was an end play, a 
twister, a puzzler. But the Earth team 
worked like a well-oiled machine. The 
runner was forced out of bounds. Mars 
made two yards. 

Third down and eleven to go. In two 
tries the Red Warriors advanced the 
oval but five yards. Sports-writers later 
devoted long columns to the peculiar 
psychology which prevented the Mar- 
tians from kicking. Perhaps, as Hap 
Folsworth pointed out, they were over- 
confident, figured that even on fourth 
down they could advance the ball the 
necessary yardage. Perhaps, as another 
said, they were too stunned by the Earth 
defense. 



The ball went to the Gold and Green, 

The team shifted. The ball went back 
from center. Again there was a swirl 
of players — sudden confusion which 
crystallized into an ordered pattern as 
an Earth ball carrier swung around right 
end, protected by a line of interference 
that mowed down the charging Martians. 
When the Terrestrial was brought down 
the ball rested on the Mars’ twenty-yard 
line. 

Signals. Shift. The ball was snapped. 
Weaving like a destroyer in heavy seas, 
a Green and Gold man, ball hugged to 
him, plowed into the center of the line. 
His team-mates opened the way for him, 
and even when he struck the secondary 
he still kept moving, plowing ahead with 
pistonlike motion of his driving legs un- 
til he was hauled down by superior 
strength. 

The ball was only two yards from the 
final stripe. For the first time in many 
years the Red Warriors were backed 
against their own goal line. 

The Druzec war cry thundered from 
the Martian stands, but the Earth fans 
sat dumbfounded. 

No one could explain the next play. 
Maybe there was nothing to explain 
about it. Perhaps the Terrestrials sim- 
ply charged in and by sheer force pushed 
the entire Martian line back for the 
necessary two yards. That was the way 
it looked. 

An official raised his arms. The gi- 
gantic scoreboard clicked. Earth had 
scored ! 

The Earth stands went insane. Men 
and women jumped to their feet and 
howled their delight. The stadium shook 
to foot-stamping. 

And throughout the entire game the 
Earth side of the stadium was a mad 
pandemonium as score after score was 
piled up while the Terrestrial eleven sys- 
tematically ripped the Martian team 
apart for yard after consistent yard of 
ground. 

The final count was 65 — 0 and the 



RULE EIGHTEEN 



41 



Earth fans, weak with triumph, came 
back to the realization that for four long 
quarters they had lived in a catapulting, 
rocketing, unreal world of delirious joy. 
For four long quarters they had made 
of the stadium a bedlam, a crazy, weav- 
ing, babbling, brass-tongued bedlam. 

In the Martian stands sounded the 
long wail of lament, the death; dirge of 
the ancient Druzecs, a lament that had 
not been intoned over an Earth-Mars 
football game for more than three-score 
years. 

That night the Terrestrials took Guja 
Tant apart, such as is the right and cus- 
tom of every victorious football delega- 
tion. And while the Martians may ac- 
cept defeat in a philosophical manner, 
those who participated in the kidnaping 
will tell one they objected forcefully 
when the mascot sinipa — which had 
paraded in honor of many a Martian vic- 
tory — was taken from his stable and 
placed on board the Earth liner char- 
tered for the football run. 

HAP FOLSWORTH, who had cov- 
ered the game for the Evening Rocket, 
explained it to Sims of the Stca^ and 
Bradley of the Express. 

“It’s just a lot of star-dust,” he said. 
“Some of Snelling’s psychology. He 
got a bunch of big boys and he kept them 
under cover, taught them a lot of new 
tricks and built them up as a mystery 
team. Them Red Warriors were 
scared to death before they ever faced 
our fellows. Psychology won that game, 
you mark my word ” 

Sims of the Star interrupted. “Did 
you get a good look at any of the boys 
on our team ?” he asked. 

“Why, no, I didn’t,” admitted Hap. 
“Of course, I saw them out there on the 
field from where I was in the press sec- 
tion, but I didn’t meet any of them face 
to face. The coach barred us from the 
dressing rooms, even after the game. 
That’s a hell of a ways to go to win a 
ball game, but if he can win them that 



way I’m all for him.” 

He puffed on a Venus-weed cigar, 
“But you mark my word. It was the old 
psychology that turned the trick.” He 
stopped and looked at his two fellow 
sports- writers. 

“Say,” exploded Hap, “I don’t think 
you fellows believe what I am saying.” 

They didn’t speak, but Hap looked at 
their faces again and was certain they 
didn’t believe him. 

Arthur Hart, editor of the Evening 
Rocket, looked up as the door opened. 

Framed in the doorway was Jimmy 
Russell. Just behind him stood a cop- 
per-colored man, naked except for a loin 
cloth. 

The editor stared. 

Men in the city room whirled around 
from their desks and wondered what it 
was all about. 

“I have returned,” said Jimmy and 
the editor emitted a strangled yelp that 
knifed through the silence in the room. 

The reporter walked into the room, 
dragging his companion after him. 

“Tone down your voice,” he said, “or 
you’ll frighten my friend. He has seen 
enough in the last hour to unnerve him 
for a lifetime.” 

“Who the hell you got there ?” roared 
Hart. 

“This gentleman,” said Jimmy, “is 
Chief Hiawatha. I can’t pronounce his 
name, so I call him Hiawatha, He lived 
somewhere around here three, four thou- 
sand years ago.” 

“This isn’t a masquerade,” snapped 
the editor. “This is a newspaper office.” 

“Sure and I work here and I’m bring- 
ing you a story that will knock your hat 
off.” 

“You don’t mean to tell me you’re 
bringing in the story I sent you out to 
get two weeks ago ?” Hart purred, and 
his purr had an edge on it. “You don’t 
mean to tell me you’re back already with 
that story.” 

“The very same story,” agreed 
Jimmy. 



42 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“Too bad,” said the editor, "but the 
game’s over. It was over two hours 
ago. Earth won by a big score. I 
suppose you were too drunk to find that 
out.” 

“Nothing to drink where I come 
from,” Jimmy told him. 

“How you must have hated it,” said 
Hart. 

“Now listen,” said Jimmy, “do you 
want to get the inside story on this 
Earth team or don’t you ? I got it. And 
it’s a big story. No wonder Earth won. 
Do you know that those Earth players 
were picked from the best football play- 
ers Earth has produced during the last 
1800 years? Why, Mars didn’t have a 
chance !” 

“OF COURSE, they didn’t have a 
chance,” growled Hart. “Folsworth ex- 
plained all that in his story. They were 
licked before they started. Psychology. 
What’s this yap about the pick of Earth 
teams for the past 1800 years?” 

“Give me five minutes,” pleaded 
Jimmy, “and if you aren’t yelling your- 
self hoarse at the end of that time. I’ll 
admit you’re a good editor.” 

“All right,” snapped the editor, “sit 
down and loosen up. And you better be 
good or I’ll fire you right out on your 
ear. 

"Now, Hiawatha,” said Jimmy, ad- 
dressing his companion, “you sit right 
down in this chair. It won’t hurt you. 
It’s a thing you rest yourself in.” 

The Indian merely stared at him. 

“He don’t understand me very good 
yet,” explained Jimmy, "but he thinks 
I’m a god of some sort and he does the 
best he can.” 

Hart snorted in disgust. 

“Don’t snort,” cautioned the reporter. 
“The poor misguided savage probably 
thinks you’re a god, too.” 

“Get going,” snarled Hart. 

Jimmy seated himself on the edge of 
the desk. The Indian drew himself up 
to his full height and folded his arms 



across his chest. The newsmen in the 
room had left their desks and were 
crowding about. 

“You see before you,” said Jimmy, “a 
wild Indian, one of the aborigines of this 
continent. He lived here before the 
white men ever set foot on this land. I 
brought him along to show you I got 
the right dope.” 

“What’s all this got to do with the 
game ?” persisted the editor. 

“Plenty. Now you listen. You don’t 
believe in Time travel. Neither did I 
until just a few days ago. There are 
thousands like you. Ships bridging the 
millions of miles of space between plan- 
ets are commonplace now. Transmuta- 
tion of metal is a matter of fact. Yet 
less than 1500 years ago people believed 
these things were impossible. Still, you 
— in this advanced age which has proven 
the impossible to be possible time and 
time again — scout the theory of Time 
travel along a fourth dimension. You 
even doubt that Time is a fourth dimen- 
sion, or that there is such a thing pos- 
sible as a fourth dimension. 

“Now, just keep your shirt on ! 

“Nobody believes in Time travel. 
Let’s state that as a fact. Nobody but a 
few fool scientists who should be turn- 
ing their time and effort toward some- 
thing else. Something that will spell 
profit, or speed up production, or make 
the people happier, or send space liners 
shooting along faster so that the Earth- 
Mars run can be made in just a few less 
minutes. 

“And let me tell you that one of those 
fool scientists succeeded and he built a 
Time-tunnel. I don’t know what he 
calls it, but that describes it pretty well. 
I stumbled onto this thing and from 
what the coach told me, and what the 
players told, and from what the Indians 
tried to tell me, and from my own ob- 
servations, I’ve got the thing all doped 
out. Don’t ask me how the scientist 
made the tunnel. I don’t have the least 
idea. I probably wouldn’t understand if 



RULE EIGHTEEN 



43 



I met the man who made it face to face 
and he told me how he did it. 

“Here’s how the Earth team beat the 
Martians. The coach knew he didn’t 
have a chance. He knew that he was in 
for another licking. The Earth is de- 
generating. Its men are getting soft. 
They don’t measure up to the Martians. 
The coach looked back at the Earth 
players of former years and he wished 
he could get a few of them.” 

“So,” said the editor, “I suppose he 
got this Time-tunnel of yours and went 
back and handpicked them.” 

“THAT’S EXACTLY what he did,” 
declared Jimmy. “He went over the 
records and he picked out the men he 
wanted. Then he sent his scouts back 
in Time and contracted them to play. 
He collected the whole bunch as near as 
I can make it out, and then he estab- 
lished a Time-tunnel leading from his 
office into the past about 3,000 years and 
took the whole gang back there. He 
constructed a playing field there, and he 
drilled men who had been dead for hun- 
dreds of years in a wilderness which ex- 
isted hundreds of years before they were 
born. The men who played out in the 
Great Bowl at Guja Tant today were 
men who had played football before the 
first spaceship took to the void. Some 
of them have been dead for over a thou- 
sand years. 

“That’s what the squabble on the Con- 
trol Board was about. That’s what held 
up the game — while the Board tried to 
dig up something that would bar these 
men out of Time. But they couldn’t, 
for the only rules of eligibility are that a 
man must be of unmixed Earth blood 
for the past ten generations and must be 
a football player on some college or uni- 
versity. And every one of those men 
were just that.” 

Hart’s eyes were stony and the re- 
porter, looking at them, knew what to 
expect. 

“So you would like to sit down at 



your old desk and write that story,” he 
said. 

“Why not ?” snarled Jimmy, ready for 
a battle. 

“And you would like me to put it on 
the front page, with big green head- 
lines, and put out an extra edition and 
make a big name for the Rocket,” Hart 
went on. 

Jimmy said nothing. He knew noth- 
ing he could say would help. 

“And you would like to make a damn 
fool out of me and a joke out of the 
Rocket and set in motion an athletic in- 
vestigation that would have Earth and 
Mars on their cars for the next couple 
of years.” 

'The reporter turned to the Indian. 

“Hiawatha,” he said, “the big square- 
head doesn’t believe us. He ought to be 
back burning witches at the stake. He 
thinks we just thought this one up.” 

The Indian remained unmoved. 

“Will you get the hell out of here,” 
snapped Hart, “and take your friend 
along.” 

IV. 

THE SOFT, but insistent whirring of 
the night phone beside his bed brought 
the editor of the Rocket out of a sound 
sleep. He did not take kindly to night 
calls and when he saw the face of one 
of his reporters in the visaglass he 
growled savagely. 

“What are you waking me up for?” 
he asked. “You say there are fires out 

in the Great Bowl Say, do you 

have to call me out of bed every time a 
fire breaks out? Do you want me to 

run down there and get the story ? 

You want to know should we shoot out 
an extra in the morning? Say, do we 
put out extras every time somebody 
builds a bonfire, even if it is in the Great 
Bowl ? Probably just some drunks cele- 
brating the victory while they’re wait- 
ing for the football special to come in.” 

He listened as words tumbled out of 
the phone. 



44 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 




Jimmy leaned against the tree. So that, then, was the mysterious team the 
coach wouldn’t name. He began to understand why. They didn’t exist — yet! 



"What’s that," he shouted. “Indi- 
ans? . . . Holding a war dance! 
How many of them? . . . You say 
they are coming out of the administration 
building? . . . More coming all the 
time, eh !’’ 

Hart was out of bed now. 

“Listen, Bob, are you certain they are 
Indians ? . . . Bill says they are, 

huh? Would Bill know an Indian if he 
saw one? . . . He wasn’t around 
this afternoon when Jim was in, was he? 
He didn’t see that freak Jim hauled in, 
did he? . . . If he’s playing a joke, 
I’ll crack his neck. 



“Listen, Bob, you get hold of Jim. 
. . . Yes, I know he’s fired, but he’ll 
be glad to come back again. Maybe 
there’s something to that yarn of his. 
Call all the speakies and gambling joints 
in town. Get him if you have to arrest 
him. I’m coming down right away.’’ 

Hart hauled on his clothes, grabbed 
a cloak and hurried to his garage, where 
his small service plane was stored. 

A few minutes later he stamped into 
the Rocket editorial rooms. 

Bob was there. 

“Find Jim?” asked Hart. 

“Sure, I found him.’’ 




RULE EIGHTEEN 



45 



“What dump is he holed up in?” 

“He isn’t in any dump. He's out at 
the Bowl with the Indians. He’s got 
hold of a half barrel of bocca someplace 
and those savages are getting ripe to 
tear up the place. How the Martians 
drink that bocca is beyond me. Imagine 
an Indian, who has never tasted cJcohol, 
pouring it down his throat!” 

“But what did Jim say ” 

“Bill got hold of him, but he won’t 
do a thing for us. Said you insulted 
him.” 

“I can imagine what he said,” grated 
Hart. “You get Bill in here as fast as 
you can. Have him write a story about 
the Indians out at the Bowl. Call some 
of the other boys. Send one of them 
to wait for the football special and nail 
the coach as soon as it lands. Better 
have a bunch of the boys there and get 
interviews from the Earth players. The 
life story of each one of them. Shoot 
the works. Photographers, too. Pic- 
tures — I want hundreds of them. Find 
out who’s been monkeying around with 
'rtme traveling and put them on the 
spot. Call somebody on the Control 
Board. See what they have to say. Get 
hold of the Martian coach. I’m going 
out to the Bowl and drag Jim back 
here.” 

The door banged behind liim and Bob 
grabbed for the phone. 

A HUGE CROWD had gathered at 
the Bowl. In the center of the amphi- 
theatre, on the carefully kept and 
tended gridiron sod, a huge bonfire 
blazed. Hart saw that one of the goal 
posts had been torn down to feed it 
and that piles of broken boxes were on 
the ground beside the fire. About the 
blaze leaped barbaric figures, chanting — 
figures snatched out of the legendry of 
the country’s beginnings, etched against 
the leaping flames of the bonfire. 

A murmur rose from the crowd. Hart 
glanced behind him. 

Streaming into the Bowl came a squad 



of police, mounted on motor-bikes. As 
the squad entered the Bowl they turned 
on the shrill blasting of the police sirens 
and charged full down upon the dancing 
figures around the fire. 

Pandemonium reigned. The crowd 
that had gathered to watch the Indian 
dance scented new excitement and at- 
tempted to out-scream the sirens. 

The dance halted and Hart saw the 
Indians draw together for a single in- 
stant, then break and run, not away from 
the police, but straight toward them. One 
savage lifted his arm. There was a 
glint of polished stone in the firelight as 
he threw the war-axe. The weapon de- 
scribed an arc, descended upon the head 
of a mounted policeman. Policeman and 
bike went over in a flurry of arms, legs 
and spinning wheels. 

Above the din rose the terrible cry of 
the war whoop. 

Hart saw a white man leaping ahead 
of the Indians, shouting at them. It was 
Jimmy Russell. Mad with bocca, prob- 
ably. 

“Jimmy,” shrieked Hart. “Come back 
here, Jimmy. You fool, come back.” 

But Jimmy didn’t hear. He was 
shouting at the Indians, urging them 
to follow him, straight through the 
charging police line, toward the admin- 
istration building. 

They followed him. 

It was all over in a moment. 

The Indians and the police met, tlie 
police swerving their machines to avoid 
running down the men they had been 
sent out to awe into submission. Then 
the Indians were in the clear and run- 
ning swiftly after the white man who 
was their friend. Before the police 
squad could turn their charging bikes, 
the red-men had reached the administra- 
tion building, disappeared within it. 

Behind them ran Hart, his cloak whip- 
ping in the wind. 

“Jimmy,” he shrieked. “Jimmy, damn 
you, come back here. Everything’s all 
right. I’ll raise your salary.” 



46 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



He stumbled and fell, and as he fell 
the police roared past him, headed for 
the door through which the Indians and 
Jimmy had disappeared. 

Hart picked himself up and stumbled 
on. He was met at the door of the 
building by a police lieutenant who knew 
him. 

“Can’t understand it,’’ he shouted. 
“There isn’t a sign of them. They dis- 
appeared.’’ 

“They’re in the tunnel,’’ shouted Hart. 
“They’ve gone back 3,000 years.” 

The editor pushed the lieutenant to 
one side. But as he set foot in the build- 
ing there was a dull thud, like a far- 
away explosion. 

When he reached the coach’s office he 
found it in ruins. The door had burst 
outward. The steel plates were buckled 
as if by a tremendous force. The fur- 
niture was upset and twisted. 

Something had happened. 

Hart was right. Something had hap- 
pened to the Time-tunnel. It had been 
wiped out of existence. 

ALEXIS ANDROVITCH spoke 
with a queer quirk in his voice, a half- 
stuttering guttural. 

“But how was I to know that a fool- 
ish newspaper reporter would go down 
the Time-tunnel ?” he demanded. “How 
was I to know something would hap- 
pen? What do I care for newspapers? 
What do I care for football games? I’ll 
tell you. I care nothing for them. I 
care only for science. I do not even 
want to use this Time traveling per- 
sonally. It would be nice to see the 
future, oh, yes, that would be nice — but 
I haven’t the time. I have more work 
to do. I have solved Time travel. Now 
I care no more about it. Pouf! It is 
something done and finished. Now I 
move on. I lose interest in the pos- 
sible. It is always the impossible that 
challenges me. I do not rest until I 
eliminate the impossible.” 

Arthur Hart thumped the desk. 



“But if you did not care about foot- 
ball, why did you help out Coach 
Snelling? Why turn over the facilities 
of a great discovery to an athletic 
coach ?” 

Androvitch leaned over the desk and 
leered at the editor. 

“So you would like to know that? 
You would ask me that question. Well, 
I will tell you. Gentlemen came to me, 
not the coach, but other gentlemen. A 
gentleman by the name of Danny 
Carsten and others. Yes, the gangsters. 
Danny Carsten was killed later, but I 
do not care about that. I care for noth- 
ing but science.” 

“Did you know who these men were 
when they came to you ?” asked Hart. 

“Certainly I knew. They told me 
who they were. They were very busi- 
nesslike about it. They said they had 
heard about me working on Time travel 
and they asked when I thought I would 
have it finished. I told them I already 
had solved the problem and then they 
spread money on the table — much 
money, more than I had ever seen before. 
So I said to them: ‘Gentlemen, what 
can I do for you?’ and they told me. 
They were frank about it. They said 
they wanted to win much money by bet- 
ting on the game. They said they 
wanted me to help them get a team which 
would win the game. So I agreed.” 

Hart leaped to his feet. 

“Great galloping Jupiter,” he yelled. 
“Snelling mixed up with gangsters !” 

Androvitch shook his head. 

“Snelling did not know he was deal- 
ing with gangsters. Others went to him 
and talked to him about using the Time 
travel method. Others he thought were 
his friends.” 

“But, man,” said Hart, “you aren’t 
going to tell all this when you are called 
before the athletic Board of Control? 
There’ll be an investigation that will go 
through the whole thing with a fine 
tooth comb and you’ll knock Coach 
Snelling out of the football picture if 



RULE EIGHTEEN 



47 



you open your mouth about gangsters 
being mixed up in this.” 

THE SCIENTIST shook his head. 
“Why should I care one way or the 
other. Human fortunes mean little. 
Progress of the race is the only thing 
worth white. I have nothing to hide. 
I sold the use of my discovery for money 
I needed to embark upon other re- 
searches. Why should I lie? If I tell 
the truth, maybe they will let me leave 
as soon as my story is told. I can’t 
waste time at investigations. I have work 
to do, important work.” 

“Have it your way,” said Hart, “but 
the thing I came here for was to see 
you about Jimmy Russell. Is there any 
way I can reach him? Do you know 
yrhat happened?” 

“Something happened to the Time- 
control machine which was in Coach 
Snelling’s office. It operated at all times 
to keep the tunnel open. It required a 
lot of power and we had it hooked on a 
high-voltage circuit. I would guess that 
one of the Indians, becoming frightened 
in the office, probably even in a drunken 
stupor, blundered into the machine. He 
more than likely tipped it over and 
short-circuited it. I understand frag- 
ments of human body were found in the 
office. Just why the tunnel or the ma- 
chine should have exploded, I don’t 
know. Electricity — just plain old elec- 
tricity — was the key to the whole dis- 
covery. But probably I had set up some 
other type of force — let’s call it a Time- 
force if you want to be melodramatic 
about it — and this force might have been 
responsible. There’s still a lot to leam. 
And a lot of times a man accomplishes 
results which he does not suspect.” 

“But what about Jimmy?” 

“I’m pretty busy right now,” replied 
Androvitch. “I couldn’t possibly do 
anything for a few days ” 

“Is there anyone else who could do 
the work?” asked Hart. 

Androvitch shook his head. “No 



other person,” he said. “I do not con- 
fide in others. Once a Time-tunnel has 
been established, it is easy to operate the 
machine — that is, projecting the Time 
element further away from the present 
or bringing it closer to the present. The 
football players who have been brought 
here to play the game were in the pres- 
ent time over six months. But they 
will be returned to their own time 
at approximately the same hour 
they left it. That merely calls for 
a proper adjustment of the machine con- 
trolling the tunnel back into Time. But 
setting up a tunnel is something only I 
can do. It requires considerable tech- 
nique, I assure you.” 

Hart brought out a bill fold. He 
counted out bank notes. 

“Tell me when to stop,” he said. 

Androvitch wet his lips and watched 
the notes pile up on the table before 
him. 

Finally he raised his hand. 

“I will do it,” he said. “I will start 
jwork tomorrow.” 

His hand reached out and clutched the 
notes. 

“Thank you, Mr. Hart,” he said. 

Hart nodded and turned to the door. 
Behind him the scientist greedily counted 
and re-counted the bills. 




RUSH CULVER shook hands with 
Ash Anderson, football scout for Coach 
August Snelling. 

“I’m glad I didn’t hang one on you 
that night you came into my room, 
Ash,” the fullback said. “This has been 
the thrill of a lifetime. Any time you 
fellows need another good fullback just 
come back and get me.” 

Anderson smiled. 

“Maybe we will if the Control Board 
doesn’t change the rules. They’ll prob- 
ably rip Rule Eighteen all to hell now. 
And all because of a lousy newspaper- 
pian who had to spill the story. No 



48 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



loyalty, that’s what’s the matter with 
those guys. They’d cut their grand- 
mas’ throats for a good story.” 

The two stood awkwardly. 

“Hate to say good-by,” said Rush. 
“One time I kind of thought I’d like to 
stay up ahead in your time. But there’s 
a girl back here. And this stuff you 
gave me will help us get settled soon as 
I graduate. Right clever, the way you 
fellows struck off old money.” 

“They’ll never know the difference,” 
said Ash. “They’ll accept it as coin of 
the realm. The money we have up ahead 
wouldn’t help you any here. As long as 
we had agreed to pay you, we might as 
well give you something you can use.” 

“Well, so long. Ash,” said Culver, 

“So long,” said Ash. 

Rush walked slowly down the street. 
The music hall clock tolled the hour. 
Rush listened. Gone only an hour — 
and in that time he had lived over six 
months in the future. He jingled the 
coins in the sack he held in his hand and 
struck up a tune. 

Then he wheeled suddenly. 

“Ash — wait a minute! Ash!” he 
shouted. 

But the man out of the future was 
gone. 

Slowly Rush turned back down the 
street, heading for the house he had 
quitted less than 60 minutes before. 

“Hell,” he said to himself, “I forgot 
to thank him for helping me with math.” 

A TINY BELL tinkled softly again 
and again. 

Arthur Hart stirred uneasily in his 
sleep. The bell kept on insistently. The 
editor sat up in bed, ran his hands 
through his hair and growled. The ring- 
ing continued. 

“The Morning Space-Ways,” he said. 
“Getting out an extra. Now just what 
in the doubled-dipped damnation would 
they be getting out an extra for ?” 

He pressed a lever and stepped up the 
intensity of the light in the room. Walk- 



ing to a machine, he snapped a button 
and shut off the ringing bell. Opening 
the machine, he took from a receptacle 
within it a newspaper still wet with ink. 

He glared at the second of the three 
news-delivery machines. 

“If the Star beats the Rocket to an 
extra I’ll go down and take the place 
apart,” he snarled. “We been scooped 
too often lately. Probably isn’t worth an 
extra, though. Just Space-Ways doing 
a little more promotion work.” 

Sleepily he unfolded the sheet and 
glanced at the headline. 

It read : 

“TIME MACHINE 
SCIENTIST SLAIN 
BY GANGSTERS” 

Hart’s breath sobbed in his throat as 
his eyes moved down to the second deck. 

“ALEXIS ANDROVITCH TORCHED ON 

STREET FROM SPEEDING CAR. 

POLICE BELIEVE MARS-EARTH 
GAME MAY BE CLUE.” 

The Rocket news-delivery machine 
stormed into life. Another extra. 

Hart snatched the paper from the ma- 
chine. 

He read; 

“GANGSTERS SILENCE 
SCIENTIST ON EVE 
OF GAME HEARING” 

Stunned, Hart sat down on the edge 
of the bed. 

Androvitch was dead ! The only 
man in the world who could set up a 
Time-tunnel to reach Jimmy! 

It was all plain — plain as day. The 
gambling syndicate, afraid of what An- 
drovitch might say, had effectively si- 
lenced him. Dead men do not talk. 

Hart bowed his head in his hjmds. 

“The best damn reporter I ever had,” 
he moaned. 

He sprang to his feet as a thought 
struck him and rushed to the visaphone. 
Hurriedly he set up a wave length. 



RULE EIGHTEEN 



49 



The face of Coach August Snelling 
appeared in the glass. 

“Say, coach,” said Hart breathlessly, 
“have you sent all the boys back to the 
past ?” 

“Hart,” said Coach Snelling in an 
even voice filled with cold wrath, “after 
the way the newspapers have crucified 
me I have nothing to say.” 

“But, coach,” pleaded Hart, “I’m not 
asking you for publication. What you 
can tell me will never be printed. I 
want your help.” 

“I needed your help the other day,” 
Snelling reminded him, “and you told 
me news was news. You said you owed 
it to your readers to publish every de- 
tail of any news story.” 

“But a man’s life depends on this,” 
shouted Hart. “One of my reporters is 
back in the time where you trained the 
team. If I could use one of the other 
tunnels — one of those you used to bring 
the boys forward in Time — I could shoot 
it back to the correct time. Then I could 
travel to where Jimmy is and bring him 
back ” 

“I’m telling you the truth when I say 
that the boys have all been sent back 
and all the tunnels are closed,” Snelling 
said. “The last player went back this 
afternoon.” 

“Well,” said Hart slowly, “I guess 
that settles it ” 

Snelling interrupted. “I heard about 
Russell,” he said, “and if he’s trapped 
back with those Indians it’s what I’d 
call poetic justice.” 

The glass went back as Snelling cut 
the connection. 

The Star machine bell hammered. 
Hart wearily shut off the extra signal 
and took out the paper. 

“Hell,” he said, “if we’d had Jimmy 
here we’d scooped even the Space-Ways 
on this yarn.” 

He looked sadly at the three edi- 
tions. 

“Best damn reporter I ever knew,” the 
editor said. 



PROF. EBNER WHITE was lec- 
turing to Elementary Astronomy, Sec- 
tion B. 

“While there is reason to believe that 
Mars has an atmosphere,” he was say- 
ing, “there is every reason to doubt that 
the planet has conditions which would 
allow the existence of life forms. There 
is little oxygen in the atmosphere, if 
there is an atmosphere. The red color 
of the planet would argue that much of 
whatever oxygen may have been at one 
time in the atmosphere ” 

At this point Prof. White was rudely 
interrupted. 

A young man had risen slowly to his 
feet. 

“Professor,” he said, “I’ve listened to 
you for the last half hour and have 
reached a conclusion you know nothing 
about what you are saying. I can tell 
you that Mars does have an atmosphere. 
It also has plenty of oxygen and other 
conditions favorable to life. In fact, there 
is life there ” 

The young man stopped talking, re- 
alizing what he had done. The class was 
on the verge of breaking into boisterous 
gayety and gales of strangled guffaws 
swept the room. No one liked Prof. 
White. 

The professor sputtered feebly and 
tried to talk. Finally he did. 

“Perhaps, Mr. Culver,” he suggested, 
“you had better come up here while I 
come down and occupy your seat.” 

“I’m sorry, sir. I forgot myself. It 
won’t happen again. I publicly and sin- 
cerely apologize.” 

He sat down and Prof. White went 
on with the lecture. 

Which incident explains why Rush 
Culver became a tradition at the Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin. 

Marvelous tales were told of him. He 
was voted the man of the year in his 
senior year. He was elected a member 
of outstanding campus organizations 
which even his great football prowess in 
his junior and sophomore years had 



50 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



failed to obtain for him. 

From a mediocre student he became 
regarded as a brilliant mind. Students 
to whom he had formerly gone for help 
with mathematics and other studies now 
came to him. 

At one time he took the floor in a 
political science discussion hour and used 
up the entire hour explaining the func- 
tioning of a Utopian form of govern- 
ment. Those who heard him later said 
that he sounded as if he might have seen 
the government in actual operation. 

But his greatest glory came from the 
credit which was accorded him for Wis- 
consin’s football triumphs. Rumor on 
the campus said that he had worked out 
and given to the coach a series of plays, 
based upon gridiron principles then en- 
tirely new to the game. Rush, when ap- 
proached, denied he had given them to 
the coach. But, however that may be, 
Wisconsin did spring upon its opponents 
that fall a devastating attack. Team 
after team fell before the onslaught of 
the Badgers. The team traveled to Min- 
neapolis and there it marched through 
the mighty Golden Gophers with appar- 
ent ease, while fans and sports-writers 
grew faint with wonder and the football 
world trembled with amazement. 

Qamorous popular demand forced the 
Big Ten to rescind its ruling against 
post-season games and at the Rose Bowl 
on January 1, 1945, the Badgers de- 
feated the Trojans 49 to 0 in what 
sports-writers termed the greatest game 
ever played in football, 

JIMMY RUSSELL was up a tree. 
He had been lucky to find the tree, for 
there were few in that part of the coun- 
try and at the moment he reached it, 
Jimmy was desperately in need of a 
tree. 

Below him patrolled an enormous 
grizzly bear, fighting mad, snarling and 
biting at the shafts of arrows which pro- 
truded from his shoulders. The bole 
of the tree was scarred and splintered 



where tlie enraged animal had struck 
savagely at it with huge paws armed 
with four-inch talons. Low limbs had 
been ripped from the trunk as the beast 
reared to his full height, attempting to 
reach his quarry. 

In a gully a quarter of a mile away 
lay the ripped and torn body of Chief 
Hiawatha. The bear had singled the 
Indian out in his first charge. Jimmy 
had sent his last arrow winging deep 
into the animal’s throat as the beast had 
torn the life from his friend. Then, 
w’ithout means of defense and knowing 
that his companion was dead, Jimmy had 
run, madly, blindly. The tree saved 
him, at least temporarily. He still had 
hopes that that last arrow, inflicting a 
deep throat wound, from which the blood 
flowed freely, would eventually spell 
death to the maddened beast. 

Sadly he reflected, as he perched on a 
large branch, that if he ever did get 
down alive the rest of the trip would be 
lonely. It was still a long way to Mex- 
ico and the Aztec civilization, but the 
way would not have seemed long with 
old Chief Hiawatha beside him. The 
chief had been his only friend in this 
savage, prehistoric world and now he 
lay dead and Jimmy faced another thou- 
sand miles alone, on foot, w^ithout ade- 
quate weapons. 

“Maybe I should have waited at the 
village,” Jimmy told himself. "Some- 
body might have gotten through to me. 
But maybe nobody wanted to get 
through. Funny, though, I always fig- 
ured Hart was my friend, even if he did 
get hard-boiled every time he saw me. 
Still — I waited three years and that 
should have given him plenty of time.” 

A lone buffalo bull wandered up the 
gully and over the ridge where the 
grizzly stood guard under the tree. The 
bear, sighting the bull, rushed at him, 
roaring with rage. For a moment it 
appeared the bull might stand his 
ground, but before the bear covered half 
the distance to him, he wheeled about 



RULE EIGHTEEN 



51 



and lumbered off. The grizzly came 
back to the tree. 

Far out on the plain Jimmy located a 
skittering band of antelope and watched 
them for a long time. A wolf slunk 
through the long grass in a gully to the 
west of the tree. In the sl<y vultures be- 
gan to wheel and turn. Jimmy shook 
his fist at them and cursed. 

Twilight came and still the bear kept 
up the watch. At times he withdrew a 
short distance and lay down as if he 
were growing weak from loss of blood. 
But in each instance he came back to re- 
sume the march around the tree. 

The moon came up and wolves howled 
plaintively from the ridges to the east. 
Jimmy, tearing a buckskin strip from his 
shirt, lashed himself to the tree. It was 
well he did so, for in spite of the danger 
below, despite his efforts to keep awake, 
he fell asleep. 

The moon was low in the west when 
he awoke. He was stiff and cliilled and 
for a moment he did not remember where 
he was. 

A slinking form slipped over a ridge a 
short distance away and from somewhere 
on the prairie came the roaring grunting 
of a herd of awakening buffalo. 

With a realization of his position com- 
ing to him, Jimmy looked about for the 
bear. He did not locate the beast at 
first, but finally saw its great bulk 
stretched out on the ground some dis- 



tance away. He shouted, but the ani- 
mal did not stir. 

LATE AFTERNOON saw Jimmy 
heading southwest across the plains. He 
was clad in tattered buckskins. He was 
armed w’ith a bow and a few arrows. At 
his belt swung a tomahawk. But he 
walked with a free swinging tread and 
his head was high. 

Behind him a mound of stones marked 
the last resting place of all that re- 
mained mortal of Chief Hiawatha. Ahead 
of him lay Mexico, land of the Aztecs. 

There he would find the highest or- 
der of civilization in pre-Columbian 
North America. There he would find 
people whose legends told of a strange 
white god who came to them in ancient 
days and taught them many things. This 
was the story they had told the Spanish 
conquistadores. That was why they 
had hailed Cortez as a god likewise, to 
their later sorrow. 

“A white god who taught them many 
things,” said Jimmy to himself and 
chuckled. Might he not have been that 
white god? Could he not have taught 
them many things? But if he had been 
a god to the Aztecs, why had he not 
warned them against the Spaniards? 

Jimmy chuckled again. 

"A newspaperman should make one 
hell of a good god for a bunch of red- 
skins,” he told himself. 





Ask for this quality Kob- 
lucky Straight Bourbon, n't 
assy on 



nil m di mtitnunt <• sot isnnM to cTor slooMio U m r a t m/tr ooto or dtUrerw m ■ 
Im in r I U lu t, sato or um Ikorosf it ssloq^ . 

AST— 4 



52 




Good 
Brig! 

Kent Casey 



discusses the joys of jumping ship on strange planets — 
and finds being caught the greatest! 



T he target-hull at the end of the crew of the repair-boat, standing by in 
tow-ship’s tractor-ray swooped the tow-ship’s repeller-cradles, watched 
and dived in realistic fashion. It with professional boredom, 
would yaw, stall, loop, and change speed “They’ll never hit that baby,” re- 
and direction with a giddy abandon few marked Private Snell who was watching 
stunt-pilots could have equalled. The target practice for the first time. 



53 

















54 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Sergeant McQure, in charge of the 
repair gang, sniffed. “Don’t fool your- 
self. You’ll have plenty to do between 
now and pipe-down. Here she comes. 
Get into your space helmets, everybody. 
We’ll take off as soon as she’s halfway 
down the range.” 

“Two bits she don’t hit this run,” 
spoke up Private Kelton, leisurely se- 
curing the neck-joint of his space armor 
and wriggling his oxygen tank more 
comfortably between his shoulders. 

The sour-visaged sergeant turned a 
baleful stare. “Yeah? Well this is no 
county fair. It’s a workin’ party. Just 
for that, you can weld the hull-holes 
she gets while Snell, here, sets up on 
the target-shield.” 

“Aw, Sarge, have a heart!” Kelton 
was beginning, when the firing ship 
flashed on a parallel course, opening 
fire on the target as soon as she had 
cleared the tow-ship’s stern. 

“Let’s go,” was McQure’s grunted 
reply. 

’The little repair-boat shot off the 
ways and took a respectful course be- 
hind the whizzing cruiser. To Private 
Snell’s wide eyes it looked as if every 
burst from the big ship’s guns had ob- 
literated the target. But it emerged, 
wriggling, from blast after blast. The 
bursts were ringing the little robot hull 
in a perfect salvo pattern, but still it 
continued to duck and dodge. “Makin’ 
misses all over the atmosphere!” de- 
rided Kelton. 

’The sergeant again glowered. “Offi- 
cers’ string,” he announced. “And a 
sweet one. They don’t want to make 
the battery wait on the next run till we 
can put over another target. They’re 
just ticklin’ her up. You’re seeing some 
fancy shooting if you weren’t too dumb 
to know it!” 

“Officers’ string?” Snell asked. 

“Sure — officers’ string. First run in 
target practice, officers man the battery 
just to show you boots what you can 
do with a gpm. They never blast the 



target unless they’re clumsy — they just 
strip and founder it. Look how logy the 
target’s getting.” 

With a final blast from her guns, and 
a flirt of her main rockets that sent the 
target surging to the limit of its tractor, 
the cruiser spun on her heel and back- 
tracked. 

“Step on it, gang,” warned the ser- 
geant. “She’ll be crowdin’ back here 
for the first crew run in about half an 
hour.” 

THE REPAIR-BOAT drew along- 
side the target and the spacesuited re- 
pair crew swarmed out and over her. 
Kelton’s face, as he lugged out his 
welding outfit, was long. While the tar- 
get had not been destroyed, her hull 
plates had been thoroughly peppered. 
Hardly a frame had been sprung, but 
every plate was a honeycomb of fine 
holes where the glancing Morrell-rays 
had struck at extreme bursting range. 

“Get going on your two-bits’ worth,” 
McClure grunted. 

Snell entered the hull, hauled out the 
spent neutron cartridge and installed a 
new one, replaced the riddled pipes to 
the distributors and turned for further 
orders. 

“Come hold this dolly,” the sergeant 
said, setting dovm his torch and pick- 
ing up a force-hammer. “They damn 
near stove this frame in.” 

Snell pushed the heavy dolly against 
the red-hot beam while McClure ex- 
pertly played a tattoo on it. “That’s 
about straight,” he finally approved. 
“O. K. Drift in a couple rivets here 
and she’ll be good as new. How you 
cornin’, Kelton?” 

“One more plate. Have to get some 
more flux for the next trip.” 

“Naw, we got enough. They won’t 
be pepperin’ her like this on crew runs. 
If they hit, they’ll smash her square and 
it’ll just mean new plates. All set? 
Let’s scram before she comes again.” 

The sergeant rapidly, but method!- 



GOOD OLD BRIG! 



55 



cally, secured the target doors, snapped 
the outboard switch which controlled the 
armor radiation and slid into the repair- 
boat just as the bulging neutron screen 
slapped it away from the target’s side. 
The little craft had barely settled back 
into her cradles when the cruiser again 
screamed down the range. 

“Two direct hits,” McClure com- 
mented expertly. “Won’t be much to 
do this time.” 

All through a long morning the game 
continued, run after run. It was a weary 
trio who finally secured the repair-boat 
an hour late for pipe-down and fell wolf- 
ishly on their delayed midday meal. 

“What do we do this afternoon, 
Sarge?” asked Snell. 

“She tows. We shoot,” was the la- 
conic reply. 

“Oh! Wish I was in a gun-crew. 
It’ll lie fun to watch, though.” 

“Watch? You? When did you get 
to be a politician? When that general 
alann gong goes off you better be on 
your job down in the plot-room if you 
don’t want to board with Jimmy Legs 
for a while.” 

Kelton, still a private after eight years 
of war service,, sighed reminiscently. 
“Good old brig!” he said. “This ship 
has the coolest one I was ever in. And 
I’ve been in plenty.” 

“Why don’t you keep your nose clean 
and stay out of ’em, then ?” growled the 
sergeant. 

“Oh, it’s peaceful in the brig. Think 
of all the drills you miss.” 

“Well, don’t miss this one if you 
don’t want the engine-room gang to 
work on you. They’re shorthanded 
enough down there already.” 

THE ALARM-GONG broke into 
the conversation and the three men, 
cramming the last of the food into their 
mouths, trotted to their battle-stations. 

New as he was, Snell had been in the 
Patrol long enough to have acquired a 
healthy distaste for the plot-room. It 



wouldn’t be so bad if a guy knew what 
it was all about. If you could even look 
around a bit and see what was happen- 
ing on the instrument boards and the- 
track-charts, that would be something. 
But there’s no percentage just sitting 
with your eyes glued to a Fleury gauge, 
holding your hands steady on the con- 
trols to keep the little blue spark cen- 
tered on the scale, while it got hotter 
and hotter in spite of the air-condition- 
ers. Today it was worse than ever, for 
it wasn’t just ordinary drill, over in a 
couple of hours. The guns were going, 
and there were things to see. For the 
first time, Snell felt uneasily that per- 
haps it was just as well he hadn’t been 
old enough to join up before the Uranus 
War ended. Think of being cooped up 
down here in a battle without even a 
guess as to how things were going! 
Gee ! I should think they’d go nuts. 

The ship wasn’t making any too good 
time about this practice anyhow. On 
two runs they’d smeared the target so 
badly proceedings had to halt for an hour 
while the towing ship hoisted out an- 
other hull and trailed it astern. Snell’s 
head was aching and he wanted a smoke. 
Between runs he slapped his hands and 
rubbed his tingling fingers trying to get 
the growing numbness out of them. The 
air was stale with the tart odor of 
sparks, and his hair was creeping and 
crackling with electricity. Wonder how 
old Kelton’s doing down in the dynamo 
room? 

A run finished and the ship turned 
lazily and appeared to drift. “Just one 
more run, bullies!” announced the plot- 
room officer cheerily. “Then we’ll be 
through for the day.” 

Snell straightened himself and wrig- 
gled to take the crick from his back. 
“How’re we doing, Mr. Parks?” 

“So-so,” answered the officer. “We’ve 
beat the Orion anyhow — ^but not good 
enough to have much hope of the fleet 
trophy. Hey, watch your gauge ! Want 
to bum out every visor in the ship?” 



56 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Snell slumped sulkily and brought the 
spark back to its proper position. Do 
they think a guy’s made of sheet metal ? 
Got to stretch some time. Maybe old 
Kelton hasn’t any gold hashmarks nor 
a buzzard on his cuff, but he’s got some- 
thing at that, missing drills and so forth. 
Wonder what you get to eat in the brig? 
Swing a dolly all morning and sit like 
a giddy robot all afternoon 

THE STEADY scream of the rockets 
whined into a low purr as a heavy con- 
cussion shook the ship. The little blue 
spark leaped and crackled as every tele- 
phone and risor in the ship went into 
use. Snell wrestled with his controls to 
keep the overloaded communications 
from burning out. “What the heck?’’ 
he demanded breathlessly. 

“Qiarge burst in Ae outboard vent 
of Number Nine Morrell gun!’’ cried 
the man at the televisor board. 

Clang! Urrrk! Clang! The alarm- 
gong went into action again and bugles 
trilled fire call. Lieutenant Parks cut 
out all the plot-room power switches. 
“Fire stations!’’ he yelped. 

The fire was almost immediately out, 
but it was a good five minutes before 
“Secure’’ was sounded and Snell could 
leave his grenade rack and go forward 
to see the damage. The outboard end 
of a heavy Morrell tube was ripped into 
curling strings, and a gaping hole over 
six feet in diameter was blown out of 
the ship’s side. An air-curtain bulk- 
head had been hastily thrown over the 
aperture and a crowd of engineers were 
securing it. As Snell stared, one of 
them raised his head. It was Kelton. 

“Look,” he said gloomily, nodding at 
the twisted metal. “Who wouldn’t be 
a welder? All that extra work for me 
just so some dumb flatfoot can play 
again with his little gun.” 

“Looks like a back-to-Base job to 
me,” said another. “What are you crab- 
bing about?” 

“Base nothing! You don’t know our 



skipper! You’d have to blow the whole 
end off the ship before he’d ask for a 
shipyard job. ‘Repairs within the ca- 
pacity of the ship’s force.’ He’s got a 
rubber stamp for that to save writing 
it so often, so his writer says. Naw — 
we’ll go around here somewhere and 
hang up. Some planet with air around 
it so we can work over the side without 
a caisson and he can open up the ship.” 
“Well, that’ll maybe mean some shore 
liberty,” answered the optimist. 

When the temporary patch had been 
made solid and as streamlined as possi- 
ble outboard, the ship gathered headway 
and was snoring along a new course by 
the time the evening meal was piped. 
Speculation was rife as to her destina- 
tion. “Way outside the Solar System 
this way, the Skipper won’t be heading 
in there. Hope he don’t pick on Cal- 
liope to land. That’s a lousy planet.” 
“Shucks, Calliope’s way to heck and 
gone the other side of the Sun from 
where we are. Maybe he’ll hit that little 
place we went last year for liberty — 
when we all went fishing.” 

“Huh!” this was Kelton speaking. 
“All the fishing you’ll do will be on 
busted frames! Liberty with a hole in 
the side of his ship? Not if the Skip- 
per knows it!” 

THE CAPTAIN’S yeoman entered 
the mess-room late and began to help 
his plate. “Where we goin’, Quills?” 
“Some dump called Ophidia where 
they got air. (Dught to be there in about 
twenty-four hours.” 

“What’s it like? Will we get lib- 
erty?” 

“Don’t ask me — never heard of the 
place. Maybe there’ll be liberty after 
the repairs are done. I don’t know.” 
“Ophidia?” mused Kelton. “Seems 
to me I was there once. Funny-lookin’ 
people with feelers on their heads, like 
big cockroaches. But they had good 
beer.” 

“Ought to see their sun by now ’* 



GOOD OLD BRIG! 



57 



As the hours sped by, the little planet 
of Ophidia, in the Polaris System, be- 
came plainly visible. “Nice and green 
like the ^rth. Don’t look stormy 
either — that ocean looks flat as a table. 
This the place where you were, Kel- 
ton?” 

“Yeah, looks like it. But I can’t tell 
yet. Wait till we can see some towns.’’ 

The ship arrived and settled slowly to 
her repulsion anchors about fifty feet in 
the air, just as the Ophidian sun was 
setting, and a warm, brigiit night began. 
The announcers twittered overhead. 
“Morning orders! All hands at four 
o’clock! Repair gangs turn to at five 
in the morning. General field-day clean- 
ing ship. Captain’s inspection at one- 
thirty!” 

The executive officer made his eve- 
ning reports. “Do you expect to land 
liberty parties here. Sir?” he asked. 

Captain Carroll smiled slightly, then 
grimaced. “Not here,” he replied. 

“The men haven’t been off the ship 
for nearly three weeks. Sir.” 

“We’ll be home in one more week,” 
tlie Captain said. 

The executive stuck to his guns. 
“This is a new planet to everybody. Sir. 
It’d maybe be good for their morale to 
get a chance at it.” 

Again a faint grimace, almost a shud- 
der, flashed over Captain Carroll’s face. 
“No!” he said curtly and finally. 

There was some mild grumbling when 
this news got about, but the majority 
opinion was voiced by Sergeant Mc- 
Clure. “The Skipper knows what he’s 
doing. Maybe the water ain’t good, or 
maybe the people are tough. Why do 
you suppose he anchored way up here if 
this was a good place to land? Any- 
how, the Skipper says no, so there’s no 
use beefing. We’ll be in San Francisco 
next week at that.” 

SNELL, however, who had not yet 
set foot on any planet other than Earth, 
was vastly disappointed and “couldn’t 



see why”. His gloom was thickened by 
Kelton’s reply. “He’s just in a hurry 
to get home and we can take it and like 
it. I know this place. I’m sure this is 
where I was. Right over that hill there, 
about two miles, there’s a town in the 
middle of the forest — a swell liberty 
town.” 

“The old sun-downer !’ w’as Snell’s 
despairing comment. 

Kelton, seeing the boy’s face harden, 
suddenly had an idea. “Say, Kid, what 
do you say we go ‘over the hill’ tonight ? 
Let the good boys patch plates and shine 
brightwork tomorrow. It’ll be just a 
week in the brig for ship- jumping when 
we get back.” 

“Wouldn’t that cut us out of liberty 
in ’Frisco?” 

“Naw, the Skipper isn’t that tough. 
He’d just keep us in chokey all the way 
home. The chow isn’t so good, but no 
drills for a week.” 

“How could we?” Snell’s conscience 
was fighting a losing battle with his curi- 
osity and his gloom. 

“Easy — slip through the air-valve un- 
der the general issue-room with a rope 
and slide down.” 

“How could you get back without 
getting caught?” 

“You couldn’t. But you’ll get back 
all right. The M. P.’s will be looking 
for us and we’ll be hoisted back in style. 
Maybe we can bring back a bottle. The 
master-at-arms is nearsighted. Come 
on, let’s go!” 

When the executive entered the cabin 
to make his morning reports, his face 
was annoyed. “Privates Kelton and 
Snell jumped ship last night. Sir. 
Snell’s first offense, but Kelton’s a hard- 
boiled egg. His record looks like it had 
measles from the red ink spotted over 
it. Shall I send a patrol after them ?” 

Captain Carroll’s face was stem. “Not 
yet,” he said. “We’re shorthanded 
enough for these repairs as it is, and 
I do not want any more absentees — 
even official ones — until the hull is 



58 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



patched fit for the run home. I do not 
want to be late for crew liberty in San 
Francisco, especially after their disap- 
pointment here.” 

The executive looked at the ceiling 
and rubbed his chin. “Maybe they 
wouldn’t mind a day or so late in San 
Francisco if they could explore here for 
a day. I hate to let those two ship- 
jumpers get away with a liberty.” 

The Captain laughed a short, barking 
note. “They won’t enjoy it. I was ma- 
rooned here for a week once, and only 
necessity made me come here again. 
They will find that they have made a 
serious mistake. Send the patrol, say, 
tomorrow noon after the repairs are 
complete. When they are back on board, 
they need not stay in the brig any longer 
than is necessary to let them get rested. 
I imagine you can find enough extra 
duty to keep them busy on the run home, 
just so they won’t think they escaped 
anything by dodging the repair work?” 

“I’ll keep them busy all right. Sir ! Is 
this planet so tough, then?” 

“It is. They are in no danger except 
from hunger and thirst, but they don’t 
know that. They are probably scared 
silly by now.” 

CAPTAIN CARROLL overesti- 
mated by very little. The two privates 
were at that time not quite “silly”, but 
they were not far removed from it. They 
had waited until after the master-at- 
arms had made his routine night inspec- 
tion, slipped from their bunks and crept 
down to the main issue-room. “Every- 
thing’ll be shut up this time of night, 
won’t it? Hadn’t we better wait until 
just before daylight?” 

“Can’t tell how long night lasts on 
these little planets. Hate to have the 
sun come up- just as we were landing 
on the beach,” Kelton replied. “We 
can take it easy through the woods until 
daybreak, and get into town early. 
Then we’ll have two or three hours be- 
fore the patrol comes, anyhow.” 



Silently, Snell, who as assistant store- 
keeper had a key to the issue-room, 
opened the storeroom and the two crept 
below. Snell was abashed to find the 
air-lock hatch padlocked. 

Kelton, commenting only “You are 
new to this business, aren’t you?” took 
a tablefork from his pocket, bent one of 
the tines at right angles, and expertly 
began to prod the padlock. In a short 
time, it fell to pieces in his hand and he 
opened the door. “O. K. Bend your 
line to the door-hinge here and let her 
fall. Let’s go.” 

The air on the beach was warm and 
soft and the forest rustled invitingly. 
Leaving their dangling lines, the two 
runaways were soon deep among the 
trees, laboriously feeling their way over 
tree-roots and clinging, low underbrush. 

“There ought to be a road over this 
way,” Kelton said finally, stumbling a 
little as he walked into a tangle of vines. 

“Hope we find it soon,” was Snell’s 
panting answer. His excitement over 
the adventure was beginning to die out 
as he realized that he was already tired 
and hungry. “This feeling your way 
in strange woods is — ^hey! What the 

” He tripped over something large 

and alive and fell sprawling. There was 
a crashing in the underbrush and a 
startled, mooing animal cry. 

“Aw, just a stray cow,” Kelton 
soothed. 

“Cow nothing! I fell all over it and 
it felt like a big snake, all hard and cold 
and slick!” 

“Huh! Who ever heard of a snake 
with four legs that mooed? Didn’t you 
hear him?” 

“It wasn’t a cow, anyhow. Not even 
a wet one. Who ever heard of a cold, 
hairless cow ?” 

“Lots of funny things on these stray 
planets, buddy. You ain’t hurt. Come 
on. 

Daybreak came soon after, greatly to 
their relief. They had not found a road 
as yet, nor could they find any trace 



GOOD OLD BRIG! 



59 



of a town. “Sure this is the place you 
thought, Kelton?” 

“Sure, it must be. We just got lost 
in the woods. Now it’s daylight we’ll 
be all right.’’ 

“I hope there’s a restaurant open when 
we get there. I could eat a whole dog- 
wagon.’’ 

“Well, just to show’ you that old Pri- 
vate Kelton is a pretty good guide, cast 
your eyes on that apple tree. Let’s eat.’’ 

AT THE FIRST vigorous shake of 
the trunk, big, rosy apples fell in show- 
ers to the ground, and the two hungry 
men took enormous bites. “Arrrrgh! 
Pooh! What ’’ The luscious-look- 

ing fruit, bitterly astringent, puckered 
their mouths cruelly, and the pulp bore 
no resemblance to any apples they had 
ever seen. “Ugh! Damn gray slime! 
Smells like a hole full of rattlesnakes! 
Do you reckon it’s poison?’’ 

“Well, the beer will taste all the bet- 
ter,” Kelton answered bravely; but it 
was apparent that he was worried. 
“What did Quills call this dump?” he 
finally asked dubiously. 

“Ophidia,” Snell grunted through 
puckered lips. 

Kelton stopped and turned toward his 
companion. “Buddy, I’m sorry. It 
wasn’t Ophidia where I was. I just re- 
membered it was Euclidia. Gosh ! 
Maybe there isn’t any town, after all!” 

“Well, Private Kelton, ‘good old 
guide’, you better find something quick. 
And water first. That doggoned apple 
has just about set my gizzard afire.” 

Kelton made one more attempt at 
bravado. “O. K. Just mention what 
you want. There’s your water, right 
behind that fern-clump. Hear it trick- 
ling?” 

A clear little spring bubbled out of 
ground, and ran chuckling across its 
tiny gravel bed. The two flung them- 
selves flat to the turf and buried their 
faces in its icy depths. They rose with 
sputtering howls. “Kerosene, by golly !” 



Dumb now with misery, the two 
stared at each other. “Enough’s enough. 
Let’s go home and take our medicine,” 
Snell said at last. 

Kelton nodded sadly, and the two 
turned back. After an hour's tramp 
they realized that they did not know 
where they were nor w’hich way was 
“home”. 

Snell scrambled into a treetop, but 
could see no sign of the ship. “We’re 
down between hills. We’ll have to get 
on top of one to see her,” he reported. 
Ugh ! Even the trees are phony — 
clammy and stinkin’.” 

The nearest hill proved deceptively 
far away, and the going was hard. Not 
onl}’ was the forest here a veritable jun- 
gle. “but the vines feel cold like snakes !” 
Kelton mourned. And the ascent proved 
to be fair mountaineering. It was more 
than two hours later that they scram- 
bled to the hilltop and stared about them. 
“There she is!” Snell cried excitedly 
and pointed. Far across the valley, the 
ship, a tiny glistening speck, hung above 
the trees. “Gosh, she must be ten or 
twelve miles away!” 

They took bearings as well as they 
could. “We’ll head for that knoll with 
the white rock on top of it first. It’s 
right on the line. Then we can get an- 
other bearing from there.” 

FINDING the knoll, once down the 
steep hill, proved to be a difficult task, 
and the Ophidian day was well past its 
noon by the time they succeeded in 
reaching it. The ship again was visible, 
but was still discouragingly far away. 
“Don’t look like we’d made more than 
two or three miles good for all that hik- 
ing,” Kelton mumbled. 

Snell almost snarled through parched 
lips. “Good old guide Kelton! What 
a swell way you picked to get out of 
work !” 

“Yeah,” Kelton answered miserably. 
“I pulled a dumb one this time. What’s 
that by your foot, buddy?” 



60 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Snell looked down at a mottled, parch- 
mentlikc flake of torn skin. “Piece of 
old snakeskin,” he answered, picking it 
up. “Golly, what a snake it must be — 
big around as my body!’’ 

“We better watch our step,” Kelton 
answered. “Maybe it’s poison.” 
“There's another piece,” Snell said 
pointing, “and there’s another. It must 
be right near here, shedding. It must 
be big as that phony cow I fell over 
last night.” 

They picked out a Jiigh, gray cliff for 
their second landmark, and, giddy with 
hunger, thirst and fatigue, started to- 
ward it. Again among the trees, they 
stumbled along, now both watching fear- 
fully for evidence of the “snake as big 
as a cow”. Suddenly ahead of them 
sounded the barking of a dog. 

“Where there’s a dog there’s apt to 
be men,” Kelton said hopefully. “Maybe 
he can lead us to where there’s some- 
thing to eat and drink. Here, Pooch! 
Hyah, hyah!” 

The barking stopped with a low rum- 
ble of growling. Kelton kept calling, 
“Good old Pooch! Hyah, Pooch! If 
it’s a dog I’ll make friends with him.” 
They turned the rocky shoulder of a 
little hill and the trees opened into a 
narrow gl2ule. In the sunlight, on the 
other side of the open space, a great, 
gray-green beast rubbed itself against a 
tree, peeling off huge flakes of dead 
skin. It was about the size and shape 
of a St. Bernard dog, but its body, en- 
tirely liairless, ended in a long ratlike 
tail and its head was like a great blunt 
arrowhead. It stared at the men with 
unwinking beady eyes and again barked. 

“Geeze! Look what you been call- 
ing! You better make friends with him 
quick!” and Snell stooped to pick up as 
big and jagged a stone as he could find. 
Kelton, with a gasp, also grasped a stone. 
The two terrified men stood waiting for 
the beast to charge, but after a brief 
stare, the horror opened its mouth. Two 
enormous fangs shot out from its upper 



jaw, a long forked tongue flashed in the 
sunlight. Then, with a low hiss, the 
beast vanished into the jimgle. 

“THAT’S ENOUGH for me,” Snell 
said after his breath returned. “It’s 
about sundown, and I’m not walking 
these crazy woods at night again. I’m 
going up that big tree and hang up there 
till daylight.” 

“You and me both,” Kelton assented. 
Together the runaways clambered 
wearily into a large tree in the center of 
the little clearing, and had barely suc- 
ceeded in matting prehensile vines into 
a sort of safety harness to hold them if 
they fell asleep, when the sudden Ophid- 
ian night was again upon them. 

“Ugh !” Snell grunted again. “Every 
dam thing on this goofy planet feels and 
smells like snakes! Even the bark on 

this tree. And as for these vines ” 

Kelton shuddered. “Snakes — I hate 
’em ! But who ever would have thought 
that cows and dogs could be snaky? I 
wonder if the men are snakes too? If 
there are any men.” 

“Ssh!” Snell warned. “There’s 
something down below.” 

Vague, swift figures flitted across the 
shadowy glade and clustered in the black 
gloom under the tree. “They’re climb- 
ing up to us!” shrieked Kelton. “Break 
yourself off a club!” 

Hysterical with fright and weak from 
hunger and thirst, they tore frantically 
at the branches, but were able only to 
break off small switches of the tough, 
flexible wood. Where they broke the 
mottled, hidelike bark, cold, slimy sap 
ran out spreading a fetid odor. The noc- 
turnal intruders could be heard scram- 
bling from branch to branch toward the 
two men, chirping and hissing as they 
came. Kelton slashed viciously with his 
switch at two prehensile, shadov 
that reached up through the da; 
blow hit something solid and tl . ...s 
the crash of a falling body and low 
whimpering, “Snake men or snake 



GOOD OLD BRIG! 



61 



monkeys !” he gasped. “Look out, 
Snell, there’s one on your limbi’’ 
“There’s two,’’ Snell groaned. “One’s 
got me by the leg — oof! Take that, 
you brute!’’ His fists and feet flew 
wildly and two of the Ophidians were 
knocked back to the lower branches. 
“Arrgh! The breath on ’em!’’ 

Kelton was moaning like a frightened 
child. “Light a match so we can see 
’em. Remember the fangs on that damn 
dog-thing! Maybe these apes are poi- 
son too!” 

Tremblingly Snell took a box of 
matches from his pocket and scratched 
one. He tried to hold it so the glare 
would strike downward, and in reach- 
ing, he brushed a branch which had 
been bruised. Instantly the sap caught 
fire with a sizzling yellow glare. “The 
sap’s keroseney too, like ^hat water in 
the spring! Get down! The whole 
dam’ tree’s afire!” Sobbing, they tum- 
bled downward from branch to branch 
as the treetop turned into a roaring yel- 
low blaze, lighting the woods in all di- 
rections. “Look out for the apes, we’ll 
have to run from ’em !” 

“Run for that heap of rocks! We 
can get on top of that and maybe fight 
’em off!” Kelton panted. 

The blue apes had scattered in alarm 
at the sudden flare of light and made 
no attempt to pursue. They stared, hiss- 
ing and chirping excitedly, at the flam- 
ing tree until the two frantic men had 
reached the top of a pile of broken rock- 
shale under a high cliff. “There’s 
enough damicks here to fight ’em off 
as long as we got light to see ’em. Wish 
it was morning!” 

Kelton began to laugh hysterically. 
“What’s so doggoned funny?” Snell 
demanded. 

What an egg I laid this time! 
• "y, Kid. First time I ever wished 

‘jol would get me quick. Hey ! 
W net c you goin’?” for Snell was climb- 
ing down the cairn again. 

“Ssh! The apes ain’t looking. I’m 



going to get some of that dead brush up 
here, so we can start a fire to see by 
and can throw if they come again.” 

THE EXECUTIVE officer again en- 
tered the cabin to make his morning re- 
ports. "Repairs completed early this 
morning. Sir. The men have done a 
good job. With your permission. I’d 
like to have a ‘Ropeyarn Sunday’ for 
them — no drills at all today. They’ve 
earned it.” . 

“Fine!” Captain Carroll agreed. “Tell 
the steward to serve a good bang-up 
holiday dinner too, if he can. Any news 
of Kelton and Snell?” 

“No, Sir. The patrol’s ready to look 
for them whenever you say.” 

“Better start them now. It may take 
some time to find them in this jungle. 
By the way, warn the patrol not to be 
alarmed at any dangerous-looking beasts 
they may see. Ophidia gets its name 
from the fact that both the fauna and 
flora are reptilian — cold-blooded — ^and 
are equipped remarkably like our snakes. 
However, I know that they are not ven- 
omous, at least to humans. Look !” 

The captain held out his left hand, 
showing two round white scars on its 
back. “A thing like a man with a snake’s 
head struck his fangs in there when I 
hit him. I thought I was done for, but 
I’ve had worse bites from my own Chow 
dog. I discovered afterward the poor 
beast wanted only to crowd up against 
me and get warm.” 

The patrol in charge of Sergeant Mc- 
Clure landed and struck into the bush. 

“I saw fire over this way last night,” 
said the sergeant taking careful bearings 
with his pocket compass. “The Skip- 
per says it must have been them, so we’ll 
look that way first. And remember this, 
you mugs : no rough stuff when we find 
’em. The Skipper says they’re probably 
sick and that they’ve had nothing to eat 
or drink since they jumped. Fools ! A 
man’s cracked to jump ship on a planet 
he ain’t seen before !” 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



62 

“Treat ’em soft, eh?” grumbled Cor- 
poral Mellor. “When they ran out on 
the heavy work yesterday and let their 
shipmates hold the bag?” 

Sergeant McQure grinned. “Don’t 
worry,” he answered. “The exec, was 
asking me about any special jobs of 
extra duty I could think of. Those two 
are going to chip and red-lead the for- 
ward trimmin’ tank on the way to 
’Frisco all by their little lonesomes. 
They haven’t got away with a thing. I’ll 
see to that!” 

When the patrol finally found the 
wanderers, they stopped short staring, 
and even the hard-boiled sergeant whis- 
tled through his teeth. Haggard and 
sobbing, the two were back to back on 
the summit of a little stone mound, fee- 
bly striking about them with burning 
branches, while around them crowded a 
score of slate-blue, snake-headed, man- 
like things, chirping and hissing. 
“Geeze I” yelled Corporal Mellor, his 
animosity forgotten. “What a jam to 
find a shipmate in ! Sock ’em, bullies !” 

WITH DRAWN truncheons, the pa- 
trol charged, scattering the Ophidians 
and picking up the fainting men. “Wa- 
ter !” was all that Snell and Kelton could 
say. 

Back on board, revived a little by the 
canteens of the patrol, the two faced 
Captain Carroll. The captain’s first in- 



tention had been to read the two errant 
privates a lecture on the wages of sin. 
One look at their ragged clothing and 
pallid faces was enough. “Put them in 
the brig until they’re rested,” he ordered. 

“Brig ration ? Bread and water. Sir ?” 

Captain Carroll looked at the two 
frightened, famished faces. “No,” he 
said. “They have been undergoing some 
hardship already. Full ration,” and he 
turned on his heel. 

News of the predicament from which 
they had been rescued spread rapidly 
over the ship ; and even the heart of the 
commissary steward was softened. It 
wasn’t regular meal hours, but some- 
times you can’t be too tough. The stew- 
ard himself entered the brig where Kel- 
ton and Snell were slumped wearily qii 
their bunks. “Chow, shipmates ! They 
do tell me you’ve been missing pipe- 
down lately.” 

Not until the last smear of gravy had 
been wiped up by the last crumb of bread 
and the last drop of coffee almost 
squeezed from the pot did Kelton and 
Snell' find words. 

“Wheee-ew!” sighed Snell gustily. 
“Never again !” 

Kelton wiped his lips with the back 
of his hand and stretched himself out 
on his bunk. “Extra duty tomorrow, 
but tonight it’s all night in and beans for 
breakfast,” he murmured drowsily as he 
pulled his blanket over his shoulders. 
“Good old brig!” 





fJl/UUuHJLs 






F0RM1RL^5«^ NOW. 



63 



Language for 

Time-Travelers 



by L. Sprague de Camp 




All things change, end language 
is by no means the slowest. They 
may both be speaking English— 
and neither one know It! 



G radually, the rainbow 

flicker of light died away, and 
Morgan Jones felt the tingle 
leave his body. The dial read 2438. 
Five hundred years! He opened the 
door of the compartment and climbed 
out. 



"At first, he saw nothing but fields 
and woods. He was evidently in a farm- 
ing country. Nobody was in sight — 
no, here came a rustic along the road, 
trudging through the dust with his eyes 
on the ground in front of him. 

‘“Hey there!’ Jones called. ‘Could 





ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



64 

you give me some information ?’ 

“The man looked up ; his eyes widened 
with astonishment at the sight of the ma- 
chine. ‘Wozza ya seh?’ he asked. 

“Jones repeated his question. 

“ ‘Sy; daw geh,’ said the man, shak- 
ing his head. 

“Now Jones looked puzzled. T don’t 
seem to understand you. What language 
are you speaking ?’ 

“ ‘Wah lenksh? Inksh lenksh, coss. 
Wall you speak? Said, sah-y, daw 
geh-ih. Daw, neitha. You fresh? 
Jumm ?’ 

“Jones had an impulse to shake his 
head violently, the same feeling he al- 
ways had when the last word of a cross- 
W'ord puzzle eluded him. The man had 
understood him, partly, and the noises 
he made were somehow vaguely like 
English, but no English such as Jones 
had ever heard. Tnksh lenksh’ must be 
‘English language;’ ‘sah-y daw geh-ih’ 
was evidently ‘sorry, don’t get it.’ 

“ ‘What,’ he asked, ‘is a fresh jumm?’ 
“ ‘Nevva huddum?’ said the rustic, 
scorn in his tone. ‘Fresh people, go Out, 
out, perlez-vous Francois, va t’en, sale 
betel’ He did this with gestures. Then 
he stiffened. ‘Jumms go’ — he clicked his 
heels together — ‘Achtung! Vorwdrts, 

ntarsch! Guten Tag, tneine Herren! 
Verstehen Sie Deutsch? Fresh from 
Fress; Jumms from Jummy. Geh ih?’ 
“ ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said Jones. His 

mind was reeling slightly ’’ 

Thus might almost any novel on the 
time-travel theme or the Rip Van Win- 
kle theme begin. The author, having 
landed his hero in the far future, may 
either ascribe telepathy to the people of 
the time, or remark on how the English 
language will have changed. The fore- 
going selection shows — in somewhat 
more detail than do most of the stories — 
a few of the actual changes that might 
take place. To be strictly consistent, I 
should have changed the French and 
German selections also, but, in the first 
place, I don’t know enough about French 



and German to predict their future evo- 
lution, and, in the second, it would have 
made the rustic’s explanation utterly un- 
intelligible. It might be interesting to 
consider in detail just what changes may 
occur. To do this thing right we shall 
have to first take a brief took at the lan- 
guage’s present state and its past history. 

English is a Teutonic Language, like 
German, Dutch, and Swedish, with a 
large infusion — perhaps a majority — of 
French words. Its parent tongue, 
Anglo-Saxon, was more highly inflected 
than its descendant — less so than Latin, 
but about as much so as modern Ger- 
man.* Anglo-Saxon would sound to a 
modern hearer as much tike a foreign 
language as German ; English didn’t be- 
come what would be intelligible to us 
until about the 16th Century. English 
of the 1500’s would sound to us like 
some sort of Scotch dialect, because it 
had the the rolled “r” and the fricative 
consonants heard in German: ich, ach 
(that’s what all those silent git’s in mod- 
em English spelling mean — or rather, 
used to mean) which have been retained 
in Scottish English, but lost or trans- 
formed in most other kinds of English. 
We have a fair idea of the pronunciation 
of Shakespeare’s time because about then 
people began writing books on the sub- 
ject. It’s amusing to reflect that if 
Shakespeare returned to Earth, he’d get 
along passably in Edinburgh; he could 
manage, with some difficulty, in Chicago 
— but he’d be hopelessly lost in London, 
whose dialect would differ most radically 
from his ! So much for the “language of 
Shakespeare !’’ 

AUTHORS are fairly safe in having 
the people of the future speak English 
— which is very convenient for the 
authors. Aside from the fact that no- 



*For Instance, the noun end in Anglo-SaxoK 



had these forma : 

Singular Plural 
Nominative ende endas 

Oenetive endea enda 

Dative ende endum 

Accusative ende endas 



LANGUAGE FOR TIME-TRAVELERS 



65 



body can prove them wrong, English is, 
today, well on the way to becoming the 
world’s international language. It is 
probably taught in the schools of more 
countries than any other. In number of 
speakers it is exceeded only by Can- 
tonese and Mandarin, the chief lan- 
guages of China, each of which is di- 
vided into a myriad of mutually unintel- 
ligible dialects; its nearest rivals, Span- 
ish and German, are far behind it in 
number of speakers. It’s a concise lan- 
guage,* and the simplicity of its grammar 
makes it easy to learn, though its fear- 
some spelling is an obstacle to the stu- 
dent. It’s a safe bet that another cen- 
tury will see it the second language of 
every passably educated person on 
Earth, and in another millenium it may 
well be the only living language. 

Like all living languages, English is 
changing slowly but constantly in pro- 
nunciation, vocabulary, and syntax. The 
first would probably cause our hero the 
most trouble. It changes pretty rapidly, 
and is responsible for the fantastic irreg- 
ularity of English spelling, the spelling 
usually being a few centuries behind the 
pronunciation. The spelling of caught 
was reeisonable when the word was pro- 
nounced “kowcht”, with the “ch” as in 
German acit. But consider the number 
of sounds a single letter may represent 
today, as in odd, off, come, worry, old, 
zvolf, do, women, lemon. Shades of 
sound can’t be represented exactly by 
ordinary spelling, because all readers 
wcai’t interpret the letters the same way ; 
and some sounds simply can’t be spelled : 
for instance, the ir part of first as often 
pronounced in New York City and parts 
of the South — a sound halfway between 
“oi” and “ay”. 



•The same passage translated into various 
BoderD languages has the following numbers of 
syllables : 

Canlonese 80 

Annamese 100 

English 146 

Spanish 157 

Ulcrainian 189 

Hungarian 196 

Greek 234 

Japanese 242 



Speech sounds can be analyzed into 
fundamental units called phonemes; 
these move around like protozoa in a 
drop of water, and, like protozoa, join 
together and ^lit up. For instance, a 
few centuries ago person and parson 
were one word, spelled person and pro- 
nounced “pairson”. But the “air” group 
of words split, some like jerk joining the 
words like turn, and some like heart join- 
ing the words like march. In this process 
person acquired two pronunciations with 
different meanings. 

Much commoner is leveling, wherein 
two phonemes merge. For instance, 
vain, vein, and vane were once all pro- 
nounced differently; so were right: 
wright-.rite: write. We can see the 
process at work in the leveling, by many 
Americans, of due:do and Mary.merry: 
marry. The British, with their loss of 
“r” except when a vowel follows, do 
worse, leveling over.ova, sort:sought, 
and paw: pour -.poor. 

IF THE PROCESS goes far enough 
— as it has in those concise Chinese lan- 
guages — language becomes a guessing- 
game between sjieaker and hearer, and 
speech is one long pun. In some forms 
of Chinese a single spoken word may 
have as many as 69 distinct meanings. 
French is worse than English in this 
respect, but neither is anything like as 
terrible as Chinese. In English a hearer 
can usually tell, upon hearing such an 
ambiguous sound, which meaning is 
meant from the context. If, as some 
people do, you pronounce whale like 
wail, nobody will think, hearing you 
speaking of harpooning a whale, that you 
really meant harpooning a wail. But if, 
as some do, you pronounce oral like 
aural, you’re very likely to confuse your 
hearer if he doesn’t know in advance 
what is coming. 

If we add together all the leveling 
tendencies of modern English, we can 
synthesize a dialect in which cud, card, 
cowed, coward are all pronounced like 



66 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



cod; tarred, torrid, tied, tired, towered 
are all pronounced like Todd; Shaw, 
shore, sure are pronounced like show, 
and so forth. This is a reasonable spec- 
ulation : some Southerners pronounce 
shore, sure like show; some Londoners 
use an “ah” sound in cud, etc. I hope 
it never happens, but it might, and we 
should probably manage to communicate 
— though with more misunderstandings, 
especially over the telephone. Leveling 
seems to be an inevitable linguistic de- 
velopment, though literacy — a relatively 
new thing for the masses — may have a 
countereffect. Boil and bile were once 
pronounced alike, but were pried apart 
by the influence of spelling. 

The thing that would most completely 
bewilder our hero would be another 
Great Vowel Shift. The last occurred 
in the years 1400-1800, and resulted in 
changing time, teem, team, tame from 
“teem”, “tame”, “tehm”, “t^m” to their 
present pronunciations. All the front 
vowels except those in bit, bet moved 
up. Tire top one, “ee”, being unable to 
go higher, became a diphthong.* The 
back vowds underwent a similar change. 

There are signs that another vowel 
shift, a little different from the last, im- 
pends. In London Cockney it has prac- 
tically taken place: punt has become 
something like pant, pant like pent, pent 
like paint, paint like pint, and pint like 
point. Call has become like coal, and 
coal something like cowl. 

Imagine our hero’s predicament if this 
sort of thing becomes general. He 
crawls out of his time-machine in 2438 
A. D., as stated at the beginning of the 
article, and promptly runs afoul of the 
law. 

Her#: Beg pardon, but could you tell 
me 



•If you can watch your tongue In a mirror 
while saying the rowels of beet, bit, bait, bet, bat 
without the “b” and the "t", you’U see why we 
say that beet has a high rowel and bat a low 
one. Front and back refer to the part of the 
tongue that is highest when the rowel is 
sounded ; hence beet, etc. hare front rowels while 
odd, aU, go, good, do hare bach rowels ; those 
in above are Intermediate. 



Cop:Hanh? Didjue sy samtheng? 

Hero: Yes, you see 

Cop : Speak ap ; kent mike it aht. 

Hero: Well 

Cop: Woss thowse fanny dowse? 
P’ride ? 

Hero : I’m sorry, but 

Cop : Downt annersten ja ; kentcha speak 
English ? 

Hero : Yes, of course 

Cop: Woy do wntcha, thane? Luck loik 
a spicious kerracter ; bayter cam 
’lohng to the stytion. Jile for you, 
me led ! 

ANOTHER factor in linguistic evolu- 
tion is the influence of sounds on those 
preceding and following them. We tend 
to take short-cuts in getting from one 
sound to another. The “k” sounds in 
cool and cube differ slightly ; the second 
is nearer “t” than the first, because of 
the influence of the following “y” sound. 
If this process goes far enough (as it did 
in Latin), the “ky” combination may 
become “ty”, and finally “ty” may be- 
come “tch”, as statue has changed from 
“stat-yue” to “stat-chue”. Hence our 
descendants may pronounce cube as 
“chube”. 

Our weakness for short-cuts — ^plus 
plain laziness — results in the complete 
dropping of sounds. Hence we often 
hear “prob’ly”, “partic’lar”, and “com- 
f’table”. The contracted forms “in- 
t’rest”, “gen’ral” have become more or 
less standard ; the others may follow in 
due course. Most of the “silent” letters 
in our spelling, as in askEd, WrotE, 
KniGHt, once stood for real sounds. The 
British outdo us in this respect, with 
their Whitehall “wittle” and military 
“miltry”. 

The British have slaughtered a large 
fraction of their r’s ; some of them have 
dropped “h” from their speech. The 
Scotch have dealt similarly with “1” and 
“v”, so that in Broad Scottish gave is 
“gay”. The story is told of an Aber- 
deenian in a dry-goods store who held 



LANGUAGE FOR TIME-TRAVELERS 



67 



up a piece of cloth and asked the clerk, 
“Oo?” 

“Ay, 00 .” 

“Ah 00?” 

“Ay, ah oo.” 

“Ah ae oo?” 

“Ay, ah ae oo.” 

Not to keep the reader in suspense any 
longer, “Ay, ah ae oo” means “Yes, all 
one wool.” (In repeating this story, re- 
member that “Ay” is pronounced like 
eye.) 

Our chief victim seems to have been 
“t”, whence we often hear posts, tests, 
loft, wanted as “poce”, “less”, “loff”, 
“wanned”. Sometimes we drop “in”, 
nasalizing the preceding vowel to make 
up for it, as in don’t, sometimes pro- 
nounced “dote” or “doh” with a 
nasal “o”. 

LET’S SUPPOSE that our hero has 
been hailed before a magistrate. To 
change the^assumptions a little, suppose 
that the vowels are still recognizable, 
hut that dropping and assimilation have 
been going full blast. 

Magistrate : Wahya, pridna ? 

Hero : Huh ? 

Mag: Said, wahya? 

Hero : You mean, what’s my name? 
Mag: Coss ass way I mee. Ass wah I 
said, in ih ? 

Hero: I’m sorry. It’s Jones, j-o-n-e-s, 
Morgan Jones. 

Mag: Orrigh. Now, weya from? 
Hero: You mean, where am I from? 
Mag: Doh like ya attude, pridna. Try 
to be fell, bull woh today dispecfa 
attude. Iss a majrace coh, ya know. 
Hero: You mean, this is a magistrate’s 
court? I don’t mean to be disre- 
spectful, but 

Mag: Well, maybe in yooh faw. Eeah 
ya fahna, aw nah righ nielly. Sodge, 
lock im up. Gall geh mel zannas 
dow ih, to zani is satty. 

Hero: But look here, I don’t need a 
mental examiner to examine my san- 
ity — I’m all right mentally 

AST— 5 



IT SEEMS our time-traveling hero 
may be reduced to the device adopted by 
a man I once knew who made a trip 
to Germany. Entering a hotel with a 
companion, he asked, in what he thoughf 
was German, for two rooms and bath. 
The clerk looked blank, then replied in 
something that was evidently intended 
to be English, but which conveyed no 
sense whatever to the Anlerican. After 
some more futile vocalization of this sort, 
tjie clerk had an inspiration: he got out 
a pad and wrote in the plainest of Eng- 
lish, “What do you gentlemen want?” 
The American took the pad and wrote 
“Two rooms and bath”, after which there 
w'as no more difficulty. 

However, it’s unsafe to say that Eng- 
lish as a whole will take any particular 
course, merely because one b£ its many 
dialects shows signs of doing so. A 
phoneme may reverse its direction of 
change repeatedly : in King Alfred’s time 
the first vowel in after was about that 
of modern cat; by 1400 it had moved 
down and back to the vowel of modern 
calm; by 1600 it had moved back to the 
cat position, where it still is with the 
great majority of Americans (don’t let 
the dictionaries fool you with their “in- 
termediate ‘a’”). Finally in modern 
Southern British it has moved back 
down into the calm position again. This 
sort of thing can go on indefinitely. 

Sounds that have been dropped can 
be restored by the influence of spelling. 
An example is the “t” in often, which 
was dropped long ago along with the 
“t’s” in soften, listen, castle, but which 
has been revived by/ a few speakers, in- 
cluding the President of the U. S. Such 
an addition of a sound to a word is called 
a spelling pronunciation and is consid- 
ered incorrect when first introduced. But 
sometimes one takes hold and becomes 
universal, after which it is “correct”. 
Examples are the “h” in hospital and 
the “1” in fault, which originally (when 
the words were taken over from French) 
weren’t sounded at all. 



68 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



We might here dispose of the illusion 
that there is an absolute standard of 
"correctness” to which we can refer. 
There are no tablets of stone stating 
once and for all what is and isn’t cor- 
rect, and dictionaries are compiled by 
fallible human beings and often disagree. 
The only real standard, aside from in- 
dividual prejudices, is the actual usage 
of educated people. The fact is not that 
we "use pronunciations because they’re 
correct, but that they’re correct because 
we — or a large number of us — use them. 
If a hundred million people pronounce 
after with the vowal of cat, that’s correct 
by definition, even though not the only 
correct form, dictionaries to the con- 
trary notwithstanding. 

THE RATE of change of pronuncia- 
tion is probably dependent, to some ex- 
tent, on the state of a civilization, and 
changes should take place more rapidly 
in periods when illiteracy is high, and 
schools and spelling have less braking 
effect. A collapse of civilization in the 
English-speal<ing world would make an- 
other vowel-shift more likely, and re- 
sult in more dropping and assimilation 
of sounds. If our hero knows this, he 
might be able to make a shrewd guess at 
the vicissitudes through which the world 
has passed even before he learns its 
actual history since his time. 

English has numerous dialects, some 
being beyond the range of mutual intel- 
ligibility. A Scotchman I once knew 
would testify to this: he spent an un- 
happy afternoon trying to find Myrtle 
Avenue, Brooklyn. After asking in- 
numerable Brooklynites how to get to 
"Mair-r-rtle Ahvenii”, one of them 
finally caught on and said, “Oh, you 
mean Moitle Ehvenya!” 

But which dialect most resembles the 
English of the future? North America 
has four major dialects: those of New 
England, New York City, the South, 
and General American, which includes 
everything else. The British Isles have 



a much bigger variety; that of London 
and vicinity has, by virtue of London’s 
being the capital and the commercial 
metropolis of Great Britain, acquired the 
prestige of a standard. Hence London- 
ers are wont to say that they speak true 
English, and anything else is a ‘‘bah- 
b’rous dahlect”. Often they argue that 
their form of speech is the “most beau- 
tiful”, but that merely means that they're 
accustomed to it and so like it best. One 
feature of Southren British (the speech 
of educated Londoners and ruling-class 
Englishmen generally), the loss of “r” 
sounds except when a vowel follows, is 
also heard in New England, New York 
City and the South ; others, such as the 
use of “ah” in half, last, dance, and about 
150 similar words, occur in New Eng- 
land but are rare elsewhere in North 
America. 

These dialects tend to evolve in dif- 
ferent directions, like species. Unlike 
species, they also merge into intermediate 
forms. Right now, the forces tending 
to merge and homogenize them (radio, 
etc.) are much stronger than those tend- 
ing to separate and diversify them. Given 
our mechanical culture, this is likely to 
continue until they have all been pretty 
well leveled. What will the result be ? 

The prestige of Southern British is 
high; European schools teach it. Many 
actors and radio-announcers in this coun- 
try imitate it — though the result is often 
more funny than impressive. But as a 
result of economic forces, the commer- 
cial and intellectual center of gravity of 
the English-speaking world seems to 
be shifting to this side of the Atlantic, 
which phenomenon should cause a de- 
cline in the prestige of Southern Brit- 
ish. As this happens, some form of 
American speech will become a “world 
standard”. 

The dialects wdth the best chance of 
doing this are probably New York 
speech and General American. Tlie 
former has the advantage of being the 
speech of the country’s greatest metrop- 



LANGUAGE FOR TIME-TRAVELERS 



69 



olis and its cultural center. The latter 
has the adrantage of numbers : about as 
many people speak it (90 or 100 million) 
as speak all the other kinds of English 
combined. It conforms more closely to 
the spelling, so that it is easier for for- 
eigners to learn. My money would go 
on General American — but then, like 
most people. I’m probably prejudiced in 
favor of my native tongue. Very likely 
the final result will combine features of 
both dialects. 

OUR GRAMMAR has been simpli- 
fied about as. much as it can be, so that 
only limited changes are to be looked 
for therein. We still have some irreg- 
ular plurals, such as child: children, 
mouse . mice, deer .deer; these are hang- 
overs from Anglo-Saxon, which had 
several declensions of nouns forming the 
plural differently.* Given enough time, 
they will probably be cleaned up : 
bretheren, for instance, has been dis- 
placed by the regular brothers. Our ir- 
regular verbs, such as take:took, drink: 
drank, put.put are more numerous and 
will be harder to get rid of. 

Idiomatic word-combinations such as 
make at, make away with, make bold, 
make good, make light of, make off, 
make off with, make out, make sure, 
make sure of, make up, ‘make up to, 
■make up with are the despair of foreign- 
ers learning English, as their meanings 
cannot be derived from a consideration 
of their component words separately. 
The making of these combinations goes 
on all the time, and they are likely to 
cause our hero plenty of headaches. 



*For this undiluted blessing — the loss of a 
multitude of cases, forms, and rules — we are, 
probably, indebted to the fact that ,Engli8h was, 
for some centuries, the poor-man's tongue. The 
Normans invaded England, and made their lan- 
guage the tongue of all educated, refined people. 
For centuries, all who could write, wrote any- 
thing but English — usually I<atin. The result 
was that English was freed of all grammarians, 
conservatives, and formulists. The farmers, ped- 
dlers and country people proceeded joyfully to 
throw out large quantities of unnecessary ver- 
biage that got in their way. By the time the 
grammarians again laid hands on the language, 
a lot of useful pruning had been accomplished. 



Another change that may cause him 
difficulty is the dropping of understood 
words from sentences, as when we say 
“the man I saw” for “the man whom I 
saw”, or “Going?” for “Are you go- 
ing ?” That’s ellipsis, if you want a five- 
dollar word. We practice it when we 
write telegrams or newspaper heads. As 
with leveling and compression of words, 
we gain in speed at the expense of 
clarity. I recall once being puzzled by 
a headline reading “Little British Golf 
Victor”. Did it mean that a horse 
named “Little British Golf” had won a 
race? No, it transpired that a man 
named Little had won a golf tourna- 
ment in England. Another read “Gold 
Hunt Started by Skeletons”. Alas, a 
reading of the article dispelled my first 
cheerful picture of a crew of skeletons 
slogging off to the gold country with 
pick, pan, and pack-mule. All that had 
happened was that somebody had dug 
up some skeletons, quite inanimate, and 
this discovery had caused local gossip 
about the possible existence of a buried 
cache or hoard of gold. Of course, the 
head-writer had meant “The Starting 
of a Hunt for Gold Has Been Caused 
by the Discovery of Skeletons”. He 
simply assumed that the reader would 
fill in all the missing words. 

Again, the Chinese languages are a 
horrible example: one may say that the 
Chinese talk in headlines. The table 
showing the comparative conciseness of 
languages, in the early part of this 
article, indicates the extraordinary terse- 
ness of Cantonese; Annamese, another 
Indo-Chinese language, is second on the 
list. Pitkin’s “History of Human 
Stupidity” cites the Chinese proverb 
“Shi ju pu ju shi ch’u” — literally “Miss 
enter not like miss go-out”. Even a 
Chinese would be baffled by this unless 
he knew that it meant, “It is worse to im- 
prison an innocent man than to release a 
culprit.” As far as the actual words go, 
it might as well mean the opposite. 



70 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



SUPPOSE that as a result of a pro- 
longed diet of headlines, English is re- 
duced to a terseness like that of Can- 
tonese. Our hefo is being examined by 
the experts for whom the magistrate has 
sent. We’ll neglect changes in pro- 
nunciation — I think you’ll have had 
enough of my quasi-phonetic spelling — 
and concentrate on changes in syntax. 
Hero: Welcome to my cell, gentlemen. 

Your names please? 

1st Expert: I Mack. 

2nd Ditto: I Sutton. 

Hero : Delighted ; you know my naipe of 
course. What do you want me to 
do? 

Mack: From? 

Hero : What ? 

Mack: No what, from. 

Hero : Now, let’s get this straight. You 
want to know where I’m from? 
That’s easy ; Philadelphia. 

Sutton: No hear. 

Hero: PHILADELPHIA. 

Sutton : No mean no hear you ; hear 
plenty. No hear Philadelphia. 

Mack : Such place ? 

Sutton : Maybe. Ask more. Continent ? 
Hero: No, it’s a city. 

Sutton: No mean no. Philadelphia no 
continent, Philadelphia on continent. 
Six continent. Which? 

Hero: I see — North America. 

Mack : No North America Philadelphia. 
Sutton: Crazy. Too bad. 

Mack: Yes. W’ord-crazy. Too much 
word. 

Hero: Say, what is this? You two sit 
there like a couple of wooden Indi- 
ans, and expect me to understand 
you from one or two words that you 
drop, and then you say I’ve got a 

verbal psychosis 

Mack: Proof. Escape. Fingerprint. 
Check, sanitarium. 

Sutton: Right. Interest. Health. Too 
bad. (They go out.) 

But actually, I doubt whether head- 
lines will ever bring the language to this 



sad state. Their influence is probably 
confined to popularizing a few uncom- 
mon words, such as laud, flay, which are 
preferred to praise and denounce because 
of their shortness. 

Changes in vocabulary are difficult to 
foresee, though we can classify, if we 
can’t prophesy, them. When we have 
a new' meaning to express, we can do 
any of several things: We can invent a 
new word out of whole cloth, like gas, 
hooey. We can combine Latin or Greek 
roots to make a word, like Ornithorhyn- 
chus, telephone. We can combine parts 
of existing English words, as in brunch 
(Hollywood slang for an eleven o’clock 
meal). We can borrow a word from 
another modern language, either in 
something like its original form, as with 
knout (Russian), khaki (Hindustani), 
or corrupted, as with crazvfish (Old 
French crevice), dunk (German tun- 
ken). Most often, we pile the new mean- 
ing on some unfortunate existing Eng- 
lish word, which thereafter does dou- 
ble, triple, etc., duty. Thus short has 
acquired the meanings of a short circuit, 
a short story, a short movie such as 
' newsreel, a short shot in artillery fire, a 
type of defect in iron castings, etc. Next 
to pronunciation changes, vocabulary 
changes will be the most baffling of our 
hero’s troubles with Twenty-Fifth-Cen- 
tury English. Perhaps he’d better take 
a course in sketching before starting his 
time-joumey: when words, both spoken 
and written, fail, he can fall back on pic- 
tures ! 

Words also become obsolete and dis- 
appear. Sometimes we adopt another 
way of saying the same thing, because of 
convenience, fads, or reasons unknown. 
Where we once said “I height Brown”, 
we now say “I am called Brown” or 
“My name is Brown”. (Germans still 
say “Ich heisse Braun.”) The old sec- 
ond-person singular pronoun thou has 
become obsolete, the plural you being 
used instead. 



LANGUAGE FOR TIME-TRAVELERS 



71 



AGAIN, words may disappear be- 
cause the things they refer to disappear. 
Thus hacqueton is obsolete, because no- 
body has used a hacqueton (a padded 
shirt worn under armor) for some cen- 
turies. Buggy and frigate, to name a 
couple, will probably follow hacqueton 
in all vocabularies save those of histori- 
ans and specialists, unless somebody 
finds new meanings for them. Thus 
clipper has been saved by a transfer of 
its meaning to a modern object. 

It’s not strictly correct to say that 
today’s slang is tomorrow’s standard 
English, if we can judge from history. 
Of our vast “floating population’’ of 
slang terms, only the most useful few 
(like mob, originally a slang word) will 
be admitted to the company of words 
used in serious speech and writing. Our 
hero will find that most of the slang of 
his time has gone without a trace, and 
that the people of 2438 have a whole 
new set of slang terms wherewith to be- 
wilder him. (I’m reminded of a time 
I had occasion to explain to a South 
African that by “the grub is fierce’’ I 
meant, not “the larva is ferocious”, but 
“the food is unpalatable.”) 

LET’S SUPPOSE that our hero has 
been let out of the psychopathic ward, 
and has convinced the authorities of his 
true origin. He’s turned over to a local 
savant who is to act as his guide and 
interpreter. This time we’ll concentrate 
on changes in vocabulary and idiom. 
Savant : Morning, Mr. Jones. I’m Ein- 
stein Mobray, who is to symbiose 
you for a few days until you hoylize 
yourself. 

Hero: I’m sorry — you’re going to what 
me until I what myself? 

Moltray : I mean, you’re going to reside 
with me until you adapt yourself. 
“Symbiose” is from “symbiosis”, 
meaning “living together” ; “hoylize” 
is from “Hoyle”, as in the old term 
“according to Hoyle”, “in conform- 



ity with the prevailing rules.” I’ll 
try to avoid terms like that. I have 
a surprise for you : another man from 
the Early Industrial Period — about 
1600. Ah, here he is — come in, God- 
win. This is Morgan Jones, w'ho I 
was telling you of. Mr. Jones, God- 
win Hill. 

Hill : Verily, ’tis a great pleasure. Sir. 

Mobray; Mr. Hill haved a most mark- 
worthy accident, whichby he was 
preserved from his time to ourn. 
He’ll tell you of it, some day. 

Hill : Faith, when I awoke I thought I 
had truly gone mad. And when they 
told me the date, I said “Faugh! 
’Tis a likely tale!” But they were 
right, it seems. Pray, how goes your 
trouble with authority, Einstein ? 

Mobray : The cachet’s still good, but I’ll 
get up with the narrs yet. What 
happened, Mr. Jones, was that I w'as 
gulling my belcher 

Hero: Your wdiat? 

Mobray: Oh very well, my aerial ve- 
hicle propelled by expanding gasses, 
like a rocket. I was coasting it, and 
getted into the wrong layer, and they 
redded me down. The cachet means 
an upcotigh and thirty days’ hanging. 

Hill : ’Sblood, do they hang you for 
that ? 

Mobray : Not me, my silk. I mean, my 
operating permit will be suspended 
for thirty days, and I’ll have to pay 
a fine. But I hope to get up with 
them. 

Hero; You’ll get up with them? Do 
you mean you’ll arise at the same 
time they do? 

Mobray; No, no, no! I mean I expect 
to exert influence to have the cachet 
rubbered. 

Hill: You — your??? 

Mobray: I mean, to have the summons 
cancelled. 

Hero: Oh, I see! Just like fixing a 
ticket ! 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



72 

Hill: What, Mr, Jones? Does that not 
mean “attaching an admission card” ? 

Mobray : I’d have neured that he meant, 
“repairing a public conveyance”. 
What did you mean, Mr. Jones? 

Hero: Well, in my time, when a cop 
pinched you 

Hill: Cop? Pinched? 

Mobray: (dials the portable telephone 
on his wrist) Quick, send up six dic- 
tionaries and a box of aspirin ! 

Hill: Aspirin? You mean “aspen”? 

There grows a tree by that name 

(Curtain) 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Kenyon, “American Pronunciation” 
(The best for beginners) 



Moore, “Historical Outlines of English 
Phonology and Morphology” 
Stanley, “The Speech of East Texas” 
Ward, “The Phonetics of English” 
(British dialects) 

James, “Historical Introduction to 
French Phonectics” 

Greenough & Kittredge, “Words and 
Their Ways in English Speech” 
Mencken, “The American Language” 
Bloomfield, “Language” 

Fowler, “Modern English Usage” 
Columbia Univ. Press, “American 
Speech” (Periodical) 

Columbia Univ. Press, “Phonetic Tran- 
scriptions” 

Webster's New International Diction- 
ary, 2nd Ed. 




TOPS IN DETECTIVE- 
MYSTERY Magazines. 

FEATURING THE AVENGER 

OF justice,TH£ SHADOWI 



TWICE A MONTH 

128 PAGES 
IN EVERY ISSUE 

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COMPLETE BOOK LENOTH MYS. 
TERY NOVEL OF THE SHADOW’S 
EXPLOITS AGAINST CRIME. 

DETECTIVE-MYSTERY STORIES 
BY LEADING WRITERS. 

CODES AND SECRET WRITING. 



73 



CONTEST 

Six months ago, I said Astounding was looking for new writers with new 
ideas. We have been getting a number of letters suggesting that we should 
organize a contest to stimulate new writers. That contest idea seems to me 
to be a good one, so let's look into the possibilities for a moment. First, we'll 
have to formulate the rules. 

For legibility, the manuscripts must be typewritten on one side of white 
paper — preferably standard typewriter size. They must be double-spaced to 
allow room for editing and proof-reader's markings. Entering and closing 
dates ? We'll let that go for the moment, and consider prizes. 

A longer manuscript means more work, more research, more polishing. 
We ought to allow higher prizes for that. Suppose we offered $450.00 for a 
three-part novel, $200.00 for a novelette, and $60.00 for a short story. Those 
seem like pretty sound prizes. They certainly should stimulate some new 
writers. 

Now as to eligibles. There are two possibilities; an "open" contest, free 
to professional and amateur alike. Or we could have an amateur-only con- 
test. Would it make any red difference? The winning manuscripts, to be 
winners, must be as good as any professional's work, v/hether an amateur or 
professional does it. Since every manuscript must compete with the winner, 
then, it makes no real difference whether it be "open" or not. But since the 
thing we primarily want is good material — perhaps from professionals in other 
fields — we ought to make it open. 

Judges? The editors usually get that job. The readers will determine 
whether a given contestant appears again. 

Now that is shaping up remarkably like a contest we have run — run for 
considerable time. Every month we hold that contest, judging several hun- 
dred amateur and professional submissions. We pay those prizes to the 
winners — and pay several winning prizes for novelettes and short stories every 
month! Not just one winner, but several. Further, there is neither opening: 
nor closing date; there is no limit to the number of submissions one entrant! 
can make, and no waiting for months while the judging takes place. It is, 
in fact, our regular buying practice. 

Winners? Amateurs? Kent Casey — Lester Del Rey — M. Schere — John 
Victor Peterson— and, less recently, a dozen others. L. Ron Hubbard, this 
month, represents an "amateur" in this field, well-known though he is in other 
fields. L. Sprague de Camp was an amateur not so long ago. 

And Kent Casey, L. Sprague de Camp, Lester Del Rey, and M. Schere 
have all won first or near-first places in reader approval. Kent Casey and 
M. Schere have already won several "first prizes", too, a thing no limited 
contest could offer. 

So Astounding can announce a contest— a contest for new, good authors, 
a contest that has neither entry nor closing date, nor is it limited to one prize 
apiece nor one entry per contestant. We've all gained by those past win- 
ners; we'll gain, I know, on new winners. Better stories — new ideas. 

The contest is on— and goes on. 



The Editor 



74 




Concerning the Law and 
the Outlaw — trapped to- 
gether by the Laws of 
Physics. 



The MEN 

t: 



MiE men were plunging down 
the gently curving surface of the 
mirror. 

Above them were the stars of the 
universe, whose light was caught by the 
mirror, radiated and reradiated by its 



7S 




There was a diiHcuIty. 
He demanded entrance 
as an I. F. officer— ^but 
another man had ap- 
peared claiming to be 
that same officer! 



“le MIRROR 



concave surface, and, unimpaired, was 
flung back into space as a conglomerate 
glow. 

There were two of these men. One 
was Edward Deverel, a worldly wise, 
carefree giant of a man whose profession 



By 

ROSS 

ROCKLYNNE 



76 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



— up until the recent past — had been 
that of pirating canal boats on the planet 
Mars. The other, a hard, powerful man, 
was Lieutenant John Colbie, whose as- 
signment it was to apprehend this cor- 
sair of the canals. 

Theirs was a real predicament, for 
they were unable to produce, at present, 
any means of escape from the prison 
this smooth, shining, deep bowl of a 
mirror presented. 

As to how it all came about 

WHEN Colbie, after his twelve hour 
Irek along the ammonia river which 
ran from the lake into which the Foun- 
tain poured its noxious ammonia liquids, 
finally reached Jupiter City, he was in 
a state of fatigue under which his 
muscles every one of them, seemed to 
scream out a protest. He pressed the 
buzzer that let those within the air-lock 
understand that he was demanding ad- 
mittance, and was decidedly relieved to 
see the huge valve swing open, throw- 
ing a glow of luminescence on the 
wildly swirling gases that raced across 
the surface of that mighty, poisonous 
planet Jupiter. Two men came for 
ward. They covered him w’ith hand 
weapons, and urged him inside the lock. 
The keeper of the lock desired to know 
Colbic’s business, and Colbie demanded 
that he be taken before the commander 
of the garrison — who was also mayor of 
the city — as things had, of necessity, to 
be run on a military basis. 

Riding through the streets of the city, 
he was both thrilled and awed, after that 
tortuous ordeal in the wilds of Jupiter, 
by the consciousness of the great genius 
of the human race — that it was able, in 
the face of so many killing difficulties, 
to erect this domed city, so well 
equipped with the luxuries of Earthly 
life. For outside the city there was 
a pressure of fifteen thousand pounds 
t* the square inch. There was 
a gravitation two and a half times that 



of Earth. There was not a breathable 
drop of oxygen in the atmosphere, and 
not a ray of light ever penetrated the 
vast cloud layer to the planet’s surtace. 
But man had built the city, and it 
would remain forever, so solidly and ef- 
ficiently was it constnicted. 

When Colbie came before the dome 
commander, that individual listened to 
his story, eyeing him keenly in the mean- 
while. 

“So you’re Lieutenant John Colbie, of 
the Interplanetary Police Force,’’ he 
mused. “Yet, not less than thirty-six 
hours ago, another man stood before 
me and presented proof that he was 
John Colbie. One of you is wrong. I’d 
say, and no mistake about it.” 

“I’ve told you my story — that other 
man was a criminal, Edward Deverel 
by name, and I was put on his trail. I 
caught up with him on Vulcan, near 
the Sun, and we found it was hollow 
by the simple expedient of falling 
through a cavity on its surface. I had 
Deverel prisoner then, but he proved a 
bit too smart for me. We were trapped 
there, well enough, at the center of 
gravity. But he figured that the gases 
filling the planet’s interior would ex- 
pand as the planet came to perihelion, 
thus forming currents which Deverel 
used to his advantage in escaping the 
trap and eluding me at the same time.* 
I found him again, but we were wrecked 
above Jupiter, fell into a pit with a 
liquid ammonia lake at the bottom. And 
Deverel, using. I'll have to admit, re- 
markably astute powers of deduction, 
figured that the lake drained by means 
of a siphon of some height. He eluded 
me that way, and I was left in the pit. I 
finally caught on — from some deliberate 
hints he had let drop — and followed him 
through the siphon. But he was waiting 
for me at the other end, demanded my 
credentials, and extracted from me a 



• A.t The Center Of Gravity, A>toundiDg 
Storlea, June, 193U. 



THE MEN AND THE MIRROR 



77 



promise that I’d stay where I was for 
twenty-four hours.”* Colbie grinned in 
slight mirth. “So after twenty-four 
hours I came on. And now he’s gone.” 

"’FRAID HE IS,” admitted the 
other. “I had no reason to suspect he 
was an impostor, so I gave him a ship. 
Come to think of it, he seemed in a 
mighty hurry. Hm-m-m. How can I 
identify you as Lieutenant John Col- 
bie?” 

“Easy,” snapped Colbie. “I’m not 
unknown. There must be a few IPF 
men in the city. Let some of them 
identify me.” 

“Good idea.” The man grimaced. 
“Something I should have done with 
the other man. However, that’s past. 
No use replotting an orbit you’ve swung. 
I’ll hunt up an IPF man or two.” 

And this he did. Within the space 
of a few hours, the commander had no 
doubt that the man who stood before 
him was one Lieutenant John Colbie, a 
native of Earth, and in the service of the 
Interplanetary Police Force, 

“Well, we’ll outfit you again. Lieuten- 
ant,” he assured Colbie. “What’s your 
course of action after that?” 

Colbie, lolling in a deep chair, bathed, 
resplendent in borrowed clothing and 
refreshingly combed hair, cigarette 
drooping from a corner of his square 
lips, said, “My assignment was to ap- 
prehend a certain criminal ; those are 
my orders. I just have to keep on try- 
ing.” 

“Not if things go as they have,” said 
the other, smiling in such a manner 
that his sarcasm should have been with- 
out edge ; but he saw immediately that 
he had said the wrong thing, for Col- 
bie’s eyes narrowed half angrily. 
“Sorry,” he added quickly. And then 
apologetically, “Don’t blame you a bit. 

• Jupiter Trap, Astounding Stories, August, 



Must be a sore point. How come you 
aren’t in any especial hurry ?” he 
deftly changed the subject. 

“I should say I’m not hi a hurry!” 
Colbie exclaimed feelingly. “I’ve been 
space-tied for a few months now, and I 
have to stuff a few of the civilized 
benefits into my life now and then. 
There’s no need for haste, anyway. 
Only way I can find Deverel is by de- 
ducing his destination, then going there.” 

“Where do you think he went?” 
queried the other man interestedly. 

“The new planet. I notice there’s 
quite a lot about it in the papers. It’s 
been making its way into the solar sys- 
tem for the past five or six months, I 
understand. It’s a real wanderer — 
probably been zipping through interstel- 
lar space for ages. There’s a good 
chance that’s where Deverel’s gone. He’s 
curious, insanely curious about all things 
bizarre, and he won’t be able to resist it 
— I hope,” he added. 

“Good lead, anyway. It’ll be a worth- 
while experience, too. No exploring 
parties have set foot on it. You two — 
if Deverel is there — will be the first to 
set foot on it. Hope you have good luck, 
this time,” he added sincerely. 

Colbie drew smoke into lungs that 
had not known cigarette smoke for a full 
half-year. “If there’s any doubt in your 
mind, commander, let me assure you 
that Deverel’s already up for trial, as far 
as my capturing him is concerned. Yes, 
I feel it in my bones. He’s going back 
with me, this time.” 

The two men then looked up statistics 
on the new planet. It was a large 
sphere of celestial flotsam, somewhere 
near five thousand miles in diameter, of 
extremely low density for its bulk. It 
was travelling at the good clip of eighty- 
two miles per second toward the Sun, 
but it was estimated that that speed 
would be cut in half by a near passage 
by Jupiter. Finally it would take up 
an orbit that would be located some- 



78 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



where between those of Jupiter and 
Neptune. 

II, 

SHOOTING through space at furi-^ 
ous velocity in his new cruiser, Colbie’s 
lips were set and grim. His nerves were 
on edge. There was a flame in his 
brain. Truth to tell, he was so furious 
at Deverel’s repeated escapes that the 
more he thought about it, the less he 
found himself able to think straight. 

He could see the new planet as a 
small, gray dot against the ubiquitous 
veil of stars. It was not yet named, but 
was destined to be called Cyclops, for a 
reason to be seen. And with the pass- 
ing hours it grew in apparent size, un- 
til, seven days after Colbie had shot 
upward into space, fighting Jupiter’s 
gravitational fingers, it was a vast bulk 
in the heavens less than ten thousand 
miles distant. Colbie dived for it. He 
still had enormous speed, and was check- 
ing it with the greatest deceleration he 
could stand. When he came near 
enough to the planet, he used its gravi- 
tation as a further check. He started 
to circle it — and forthwith saw the 
“eye” of Cyclops staring up at him. 

It was a mirror — a concave reflector, 
rather. But it looked like the eye of 
the planet, an eye that reflected star- 
light. Starlight, yes, because it was a 
reflector that caught the rays of the 
stars and threw them back to space. In- 
deed, Colbie, gazing on it awestruck, 
could see no slightest difference between 
the brilliance of the stars and the bril- 
liance of that colossal mirror. 

“Lord !” he whispered to himself, 
feeling half-reverent. He suddenly had 
a sensation of smallness, and realized in 
that second what an infinitesimal part 
of the universe he was. He lived for 
only the fraction of a second and surely 
was no larger than a sub-electron. For 
that mirror was artificial, had been 
fabricated by the powerful tools and in- 
telligence of a race which had certainly 



lived at least thousands, perhaps mil- 
lions of years ago. Who could tell how 
far Cyclops had travelled, plunging at 
steady pace across the void that sep- 
arates our solar system from the nearest 
star? Who could tell the manner of 
people who had constructed it? One 
could only say that they had been en- 
gineers on a scale which human beings 
could not at present comprehend. 

The mirror was perfect. Colbie took 
various readings on it, after the first 
mighty upsurge of awe had ebbed away. 
He found the diameter, about two miles 
less than a thousand ; the depth, an 
approximate three-hundred ; and the 
shape, perfectly circular, perfectly 
curved. The albedo was so close to 1 
that his instruments could not measure 
the infinitesimal fraction that it lacked! 

AND THEREAT, Colbie sat down 
and whistled loud and long. Man knew 
of no perfect reflector; it was deemed 
impossible, in fact. All materials will 
reflect light in some small degree, but 
more often the greater amount is ab- 
sorbed. But the material of this co- 
lossus amongst reflectors reflected all 
light save an absolutely negligible 
amount of that which impinged on its 
surface. For Colbie knew that some 
of it was certainly absorbed — he did not 
believe in impossibilities. It was im- 
possible that that mirror didn’t absorb 
some light. His instruments had been 
unable to measure it, but of course there 
were instruments on Earth that would 
measure that absorption when the time 
came for it. But they would have to be 
delicate indeed. Even at that, however, 
the albedo of this mirror was a thing al- 
most beyond belief, and certainly be- 
yond comprehension. 

The mirror disappeared around the 
curve of the planet as Colbie’s ship 
plunged on, decreasing its velocity 
slowly but surely. Colbie forced his 
thoughts once more to the issue para- 



THE MEN AND THE MIRROR 



79 



mount in his mind — that of locating 
Deverel. But liis exciting discovery of 
the mirror stayed in the back of his 
mind, and he was determined to know 
more about it. And he did ; more thor- 
oughly, in fact, than he liked at the 
time. 

He now had his velocity under con- 
trol. Hoping that Deverel had not de- 
tected his presence above the new planet, 
he gave himself up to the one problem 
that was perplexing him — where would 
Deverel have landed? Near the mir- 
ror; that was a certainty. Somewhere 
near the rim of the giant reflector — but 
that was anywhere on a circle three and 
a half thousand miles in circumference. 

He finally resolved to scour the area 
in which Deverel would have landed. 
Training his single telescope downward 
so that it would sweep the entire area, 
he applied his photo-amplifiers to the 
light received, and then, keeping at a 
distance of about fifty miles from the 
surface of the planet so that Deverel 
could not possibly sight him with the 
naked eye, he darted around that circle 
at low speed, eye glued to the eyepiece 
of the telescope. He hoped thus to see 
the outlaw’s ship. 

And he did. It lay at the base of one 
of those mountains of Cyclops that 
flaunted a sharp peak thousands of feet 
up into the sky. That mountain swept 
down to foothills that terminated 
abruptly in a level plain scarcely more 
than seven or eight miles from the rim 
of the great mirror. 

Colbie sighed in lusty relief, entirely 
glad that his assumption of Deverel’s 
destination had now been proven abso- 
lutely correct. 

Shooting the ship upward, and then, 
keeping that single landmark — the 
mountain — in view, he came up behind 
it, and, by dint of much use of forward, 
stern, and under jets, jockeyed the 
cruiser to rest far enough around the 
curve of the mountain so that the out- 
law should not note his*«dvent. 



HE PUT OUT a vial to draw in a 
sample of the planet’s atmosphere, but 
as he had with good reason suspected, 
that atmosphere was non-existent. The 
undistorted brightness of the stars had 
almost made him sure of it. He strug- 
gled into a space suit, buckled on his 
weapons, attached oxygen tank, screwed 
down his helmet, opened the air-lock 
and jumped down to the planet’s surface. 
It was hard. Examining it, he found 
that it consisted of ores in a frozen, 
earthy state. Whether this was true of 
the entire planet he did not know. 

He started around the curved base of 
the mountain, and, after the first mile, 
discovered that travelling across the sur- 
face of Cyclops was a terrific task. The 
planet was seamed and cracked in 
dozens of places; great gaping cracks 
which presented definite handicaps to a 
safe journey of any length. He found 
that he had to take precautions indeed, 
and often searched extensively for crev- 
ices narrow enough to leap with safety. 
He worried along, taking his time, but 
he was beginning to realize that he 
might not have as much of that at his 
disposal as he had indicated to the 
dome commander back on Jupiter. 

So that, after a good many hours, he 
rounded the breast of the mountain and 
caught the black shine of Deverel’s 
falsely acquired ship. 

But he saw nothing of Deverel. 

He threw himself to the ground. Sud- 
denly he was painfully conscious that 
his heart was thumping. The thought 
of physical danger in no way caused 
this condition — he was simply afraid 
that Deverel might elude capture again 
by putting his tricky mentality to work. 
The competition between these two — 
law and disorder personified — had be- 
come a personal contest. Truth to tell, 
the IP man respected and rather ad- 
mired Deverel’s uncanny ability to es- 
cape him, not the fact that he had es- 
caped. Colbie had to bring him back, 
but respected Deverel’s unusual genius 



80 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



at escaping tight spots. But — he had 
to bring the man in, or admit the out- 
law a better man than he. 

In this uneasy state of mind, he lay 
there, projector out. It could shoot ex- 
plosive missiles at thousands of feet per 
second, and wasj in this, the twenty- 
third century, the ultimate in destruc- 
tive hand weapons. 

Now, as he lay there, his eyes con- 
stantly on the ship and the area about, 
he turned his thoughts in a new direc- 
tion. In the name of all that was holy, 
why had Deverel come here? Hadn’t 
he realized it was the first place Colbie 
would look? Certainly he must have 
known it. Then why had he come ? 

COLBIE THOUGHT he saw the an- 
swer. Deverel had planned on leaving 
this planet long before the space police- 
man had arrived. He had had a full 
thirty-six hours start on Colbie, and he 
decided that would give him enough 
time for the opportunity he so craved — 
to visit this new planet, and determine 
to his own satisfaction whether or not 
there was anything about it which 
would satisfy that love he had for the 
bizarre. 

He had had sufficient time. Sufficient 
time to satisfy himself as to the nature 
of the mirror; sufficient time to leave 
again, and break up his trail in the 
trackless wastes of space. 

But he hadn’t left. 

Why? 

And then Colbie began to feel acute 
mental discomfort. And the longer he 
lay there, the worse it became. He be- 
came conscience stricken. And why? 
Because Deverel might be lying in there 
sick, and Colbie could not risk coming 
out into the open until he knew abso- 
lutely Deverel’s whereabouts. And per- 
haps Deverel lay in there dying. Space 
sickness is a recognized malady, and it 
is not infrequent. It is ascribed to any 
number of causes, among which are 



noted positive and negative decelera- 
tion, a missing vital element in syn- 
thetic air, and the lack of gravitation. 
Its only cure is absolute rest under a 
decent gravitation. And — such a cure 
was impossible for a man who was de- 
pendent on no one but himself. 

Colbie squirmed uncomfortably. “The 
fool might be dying!’’ he snapped 
angrily to himself. “While I’m lying 
here. But I can’t give myself away.’’ 

But his nerves grew more and more 
tense. He dreaded the thought of Dev- 
erel sick in there while he was able to 
give him help. And in the end he sprang 
to his feet, determined he wouldn’t let 
the uncertainty of the situation wear 
on him any longer. 

And then his radio receiver w'oke to 
life, and screeched calmly though waver- 
ingly, “You’re out there, Colbie. You 

would be there. Listen ’’ The voice 

dwindled away, and then came back in 
renewed strength. “I’m sick, Colbie, 
rottenly sick. I think I’m going to do 
the death act. It’s the stomach that 
really hurts, though there’s the ears, 
too. They hurt, too, and they send the 
blind staggers right through the brain. 

I’m sweating ’’ The voice ebbed, 

rushed back. “If you want to — come 
in and give me a hand — wall you? Then 

you can take me back ’’ The voice 

groaned off, and sliding sounds came 
through the receiver. 

But already Colbie was tearing out 
into the open, racing acrt)ss the space 
separating him from the ship, a wave 
of pity for the helpless man breaking 
over him. 

The outer valve w'as open. Colbie 
climbed in, drew it shut, manipulated the 
controls of the inner valve, and de- 
bouched into the ship proper. 

He was now amidships, standing op- 
posite the lazarette. Forward was the 
control cabin and vital machinery, abaft, 
in the stern compartments, were sleeping 
and living quarters. 



THE MEN AND THE MIRROR 



81 



COLBIE bounded aft, swung through 
a door, and saw a pitiable sight in- 
deed. The room was incredibly littered 
with such items as soiled clothing, and 
dishes with the scum of meals dried 
onto them. In the middle of the room 
was a table, and on that table an electric 
fan was whirling full blast, flinging a 
steady current of air upon a man who 
lay stark naked on a bunk which seemed 
the ultimate in human filth. 

Deverel lay there, twisting, squirm- 
ing, panting, moaning, his eyes rolling, 
and rivulets of sweat bubbling up from 
his queerly yellow skin, and flowing 
down to encounter a plain, stained mat- 
tress. 

The first thing Colbie did was to snap 
off that venomous, killing fan. In fact, 
to sweep it from the table with one blow 
of his open palm. The next was to take 
Deverel’s pulse. It was quick, danger- 
ously high, but certainly none predicting 
the close approach of death. In an- 
otlier day it might have ceased alto- 
gether, but at present there was plenty 
of chance. 

Deverel’s eyes lolled over to Colbie’s, 
and his lips dreW back painfully over 
handsome white teeth. 

“Glad you came,” he whispered, and 
then his head dropped back and his eyes 
closed. He was not asleep; the knowl- 
edge that he was now in the hands of a 
competent person sent him into a dead 
faint. 

Colbie knew what to do in cases like 
this. He went forward to the control 
room, manipulated oxygen tank valves, 
and increased the quantity of oxygen in 
the air. He got all the clean linen he 
could find, and bathed Deverel from 
head to foot in luke-warm water. He 
turned the mattress over, put on clean 
sheets, and then lifted Deverel lightly as 
a baby back onto it. Then he stuck a 
thermometer into the outlaw’s mouth. 

He cleaned the room, occupying a full 
hour in washing dishes with a minimum 
of valuable water. Then he took meats 



and vegetables from the refrigerator, 
where they had doubtless reposed for 
months perfectly frozen, and started a 
pot of soup. 

And that was all he could do for a 
while. 

He sat down and waited, taking many 
readings on the thermometer. 

And Deverel’s temperature went 
down. His breathing became even, and 
then he slept. Thirteen hours later he 
awoke. 

“Hi, Lieutenant,” he said. 

“Hi, yourself !” Colbie put down the 
magazine with which he had been realty 
enjoying himself for the first time in 
months. “How’s the temperature?” he 
enquired. 

“Gone. Thanks a lot,” he added care- 
lessly, but he was serious. “You know 
I mean it, too.” 

“Sure.” Colbie waved it aside. “A 
pleasure — I was glad to do it, y’ know.” 
He fingered the pages of the magazine 
abstractedly. He jerked a thumb. 
“How’d you know I was out there ?” 

“Didn’t know it.” Deverel laughed. 
“It’s a cinch if you weren’t out there 
you wouldn’t have heard me say I knew 
you were.” 

“That’s right.” Colbie laughed, too, 
and blue eyes and gray met each other 
in mutual amusement. “Like some 
soup ?” 

Deverel said enthusiastically that he 
did. So that these two men, mutually 
respecting enemies of each other, sat 
down and ate for all the world as if 
each was an affectionate friend of the 
other. 

HI. 

FOR MANY DAYS life was easy. 
No grueling flights through harsh space. 
No anxieties. No dread of death to 
come. No fear of insanely impersonal 
meteors. Here on Cyclops, the planet 
of the great mirror, living was a 
pleasure. 

Deverel regained his health. He was 



82 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



finally able to get out of bed and walk 
around. With that done, it was not long 
before Deverel was considered a well 
man once more. Of course, the old 
life then had to be recognized. There 
had been a tacit understanding between 
the two men — for a little while their 
personal relationships did not stand. 
That was fair. 

But that understanding had to be 
sundered eventually, and Deverel did 
not put the time off. The moment he 
felt his strength had returned in full 
measure, he said; “Well, it’s been fun 
while it lasted. But it’s time for us to 
sort of assume our natural antagonisms. 
So you put me in irons — right away. Or 
I’ll give you a swift, underhanded poke 
to the jaw.” 

Colbie regarded him judicially. “Fair 
enough,” he conceded. “You wouldn’t 
mind getting me about the heaviest pair 
of leg and arm irons from the lazarette, 
would you ?” he enquired quizzically. 

“Not at all,” murmured Deverel po- 
litely. 

“Wait a minute,” Colbie said uneasily. 
He leaned forward. “Now look. Did 
you notice the mirror?” 

“Certainly. And damned curious 
about it, too.” 

“And I. Now suppose we let this un- 
written pact of mutual non-interference 
drag on for a while, just enough to al- 
low us to explore? Y’know, I haven’t 
got a time limit on me ” 

“Oh,” Deverel waved a scornful hand, 
“neither have I. Let’s let it drag on, 
shall we?” he said in the unconscious 
manner of a youngster excited over the 
prospect of a pleasing new toy. “You've 
got my promise, Colbie — I won’t try to 
get away.” 

They saluted each other with a grin, 
and forthwith made ready for their ad- 
venture in exploration. 

SLEEP WAS THE first prepara- 
tion. After a good many hours, they set 
off across the gouged, forbidding plain. 



The stars looked down at them unwink- 
ingly through the vacuum separating 
them from Cyclops’ harsh terrain. Be- 
hind the men loomed the sharp, high 
peaks of the mountain in whose prox- 
imity Deverel had put down his stolen 
cruiser. 

They were decked out as completely 
as they deemed advisable. They had 
oxygen, water, and food for at least a 
day. Colbie had decided not to carry 
his projector. It was a clumsy weapon, 
and he saw no possible use for it. Thus, 
attached by a two-hundred-foot hank of 
rope, which was suited in composition 
to the demands the cold and vacuum 
of space might make upon it, they 
wended their starlit way across Cyclops. 
When they were not using the rope ford- 
ing dangerous chasms, they wound it up 
about them. They progressed steadily 
toward the rim of the reflector which 
probably had been constructed long be- 
fore man had made the first full stride 
toward harmonized society. 

Twice, Colbie slipped at the termina- 
tion of a leap which taxed all his phys- 
ical powers, and twice w'ould have 
plunged into the apparently bottomless 
gorges below ; and twice Deverel braced 
himself against the rims of the pits, and 
pulled the Interplanetary man back to 
safety. In both cases they made ex- 
tended searches for narrower crevices. 

Slowly but surely they worked their 
way to the rim, and finally struck level 
country. The last mile was a true plain, 
so unmarred that they suspected it must 
have been smothed over artificially at 
some long-gone period. It struck Col- 
bie that this would have been a much 
better place for Deverel to have put his 
ship down. Deverel explained that at 
the moment the first spasm of sickness 
had hit him, he was not in a frame of 
mind to care where he landed. 

They came, then, to the rim. 

They regarded with awe the black 
wall. It was composed of some dully 
hued metal. It stretched away from 



THE MEN AND THE MIRROR 



83 




them in a slow curve that lost itself to 
their eyes many miles to either side 
them. It was perfectly formed and 
unmarred in the slightest particular, 
about twice as tall as a man. 

Deverel struck a pose, and said vi- 
brantly, “The mirror!” But certainly 
he was not unshaken by the anciently 
constructed reflector. 

Colbie put in wonderingly, “Some 
things a man can’t believe. I wonder 
how old this thing is — wonder who made 
it — how they made it! Lord, what en- 
gineers they must have been! What 
job!” 

“What a contract for the firm 
landed the bid!” Deverel put in, 

“It’s not only a mir- 
ror, ” the outlaw 
pointed out, “it’s 
worse — it’s friction- 
less, We can’t stop 
falling.’’ 



“What do you say we top it? 
got an itch to see it first hand — 
touch it.” 

COLBIE nodded, and Deverel braced 
himself against the wall, forming a cup 
with his heavily gloved hands. “Up 
you go! But once you get up,” he 
warned, “careful you don’t topple. 
That’d mean trouble in large doses.” 
“Don’t worry about that,” Colbie said 
grimly. “If any one falls, it’s going to 
be you, not me.” 

He put one foot in the outlaw’s hands. 
Deverel heaved. Colbie shot up and 
caught both hands around the rim, which 
sloped inward. That done, he drew 



AST— 6 




84 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



himself upward so that he was sitting 
carefully on the rim, facing Deverel. 

With much effort and care, he drew 
Deverel beside him, and then, as if with 
mutual consent, they twisted their heads 
and sent their eyes out over the great 
mirror. 

At once, all sense of perspective and 
balance left them. Light from all di- 
rections smote them, blinded them, sent 
a haze into their minds. Downward and 
to all sides and above, there was light. 
In fact, the light of the stars and the 
light of the mirror were indistinguish- 
able in the split second when that be- 
wildering sensation of instability struck 
them. Colbie thought fleetingly and in 
panic that he was poised upside down 
on the most insecure foothold in the uni- 
verse. He could not decide, in that split 
second, which was the true sky. 

So — he clutched at the wrong sky, 
and toppled over the rim. 

Deverel, feeling precisely the same 
sensations, would have recovered in time 
had not the rope attaching him to Colbie 
forcefully jerked at him a second before 
he had fully decided which way was up. 
So they both fell down the angle of the 
mirror, and were, in a second, shooting 
haphazardly, horridly, through an inter- 
minable pressing mist of light and noth- 
ing but light. 

They they plunging downward so 
swiftly, and yet so lightly, that they 
might have been wafted along on an 
intangible beam of force. For they felt 
nothing. Not the slightest sensation of 
sliding — only a sense of acceleration 
dcnvnward. 

After that first moment of heart-stop- 
ping horror, after the first panic, the 
first moment of unutterable vertigo had 
passed, Colbie’s nerves started quiver- 
ing violently. Deliberately he quieted 
them by closing his eyes and clenching 
his fists. Then he opened fists and eyes 
both, and looked around for Deverel. 
Deverel was about five feet behind him. 

Deverel was looking at him from eyes 



that were extremely concerned. 

“And I said be careful,” he snapped 
angrily. Colbie started to open his lips 
with hot words, but Deverel waved a 
hand disgustedly. “I know, I know. 
My fault, too.” He drew a long breath, 
and occupied himself putting his head 
where his feet were. 

Colbie did the same, and then very 
gingerly tried to stay his fall, by press- 
ing his hand and feet on the surface of 
the mirror. This had not the slightest 
effect on his position or his velocity. He 
found that it was extremely difficult to 
twist his body except by flinging his 
arms around, but he accomplished this 
not by any aid the mirror gave him. His 
hands in no slightest degree rubbed 
against the mirror’s surface. In fact, he 
felt no sensation which told him that his 
hands might have touched a surface. It 
was as if he had run a finger over a vat 
of some viscous slime, as if the slime 
had imparted no heat, no cold, had not 
adhered to his finger, had not impeded 
its motion in any way, had merely 
guided it along a path determined by its 
own surface ! 

HE CLOSED his eyes painfully. The 
trend of his thoughts hinted of insanity. 
He tried to analyze his sensations. He 
was falling. Falling straight down, at 
the acceleration the gravity of this planet 
gave his body. But he knew he was 
merely gliding along at a downward 
angle. He was Simply being guided by 
a substance which in no degree impeded 
the action of gravity. That must 
mean 

No friction! 

The words exploded in his brain — 
and exploded crazily from his mouth. 
“No friction!” 

Deverel stared at him, and then fran- 
tically made tests. He tried to rub that 
surface. He felt nothing, nothing that 
held his hand back — as if it had slid 
along infinitely smooth ice. 

“You’re right,” he said, staring stu- 



THE MEN AND THE MIRROR 



85 



pidly. “That’s what it must be. Hell 
— it’s frictionless!’’ And then he cried, 
"But that can’t be!’’ and his lips 
twitched. “There can’t be anything 
that’s frictionless. You know that. It 
can’t be done !’’ 

Colbie shook his head as one speaking 
to a child. “No, Deverel,” he found 
himself saying in a kindly voice, an in- 
sistent but pitying voice, “it has no rub. 
You put your hand on it and push. 
And does it hold your hand back? No,’’ 
he shook his head sadly. “They made 
this stuff frictionless.” 

And as they shot downward into the 
sea of light, they held each other with 
their dumfounded eyes. 

The outlaw sharply shook his head. 
“We’re making fools of ourselves. Let’s 
face it. There isn’t any friction. Now 
— now we’re up against something.” 

“I know it.” 

Colbie almost drunkenly squirmed 
around, and finally maneuvered until he 
was sitting, his feet crossed under him, 
his eyes trained hypnotically into the 
downward distance. Or was there any 
distance? There was no horizon. The 
stars, and the conglomerate glow of the 
mirror that was the absolute reflection 
of the stars, merged with each other. 

“We’ve got to pull ourselves to- 
gether,” he said stubbornly. “Let’s 
think this out. We’ve got to get used 
to it.” 

“Right.” And Deverel did the first 
sensible thing by twisting and looking 
behind him. They had toppled over the 
rim of the mirror almost exactly two 
minutes ago, and though their velocity 
had steadily been mounting, there was a 
horizon back there which could be seen. 
It was mainly indicated by that lofty, 
slowly rising mountain which loomed 
up against the rim of the mirror. He 
felt that it was a good landmark — some- 
how, that was the place they had to get 
back to. 

“Now look,” he said seriously to Col- 



bie, “let’s talk this over.” His voice was 
slightly metallic as it came through Col- 
bie’s earphones. “Before I landed on 
this planet I took some readings on that 
mirror same as you, and I guess I came 
to the same conclusions.” 

IV. 

“LONG AGO, maybe a million years, 
there was a race of men — or beings — 
who lived on a planet that circled a sun 
just like ours, perhaps. They had a 
satellite, this planet, we’re on. They 
were engineers on a monster scale. I 
have no doubt they could have remade 
their planet, and even their solar sys- 
tem, exactly to suit themselves — and 
maybe they did. But they made this 
satellite over to suit themselves, that’s 
certain. They gouged out — how I 
wouldn’t know — a section of this planet 
that corresponded to the bottom part of 
a sphere. The radius of that sphere — I 
figured it — is about 1600 miles out in 
space. Then, so help me — I wouldn’t 
know this, either — ^they coated that 
gouged-out surface with some substance 
which, when it hardened, formed an ab- 
solutely smooth surface. You came to 
the same conclusions I did, didn’t you? 
That it was such a perfect reflector you 
couldn’t measure the amount it didn’t 
reflect ?” 

Colbie, listening with interest, nodded. 
“And we should have seen that such a 
good reflector would be frictionless, too. 
Couldn’t be any other way. And say!” 
he exclaimed. “This stuff can’t be fric- 
tionless. We knew it couldn’t reflect all 
light. It simply reflects all but a negligi- 
ble amount of light, and it’s got a neg- 
ligible amount of friction, too!” 

“That’s right !” Deverel was gen- 
uinely relieved. “That idea of no fric- 
tion at all had me going cuckoo. ’Course 
not — there can’t be any surface that’s 
got no friction at all. The molecular 
state of matter forbids it. No matter 
how close you crowd the molecules, they 



86 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



still make an infinitesimally bumpy sur- 
face. 

“Now why did they make the mirror? 
Only reason I can see — power. They 
must have had a heat engine. It gen- 
erated power in huge amounts, undoubt- 
edly, and perhaps the power they took 
in that way was broadcast back to their 
planet. Or perhaps it was a weapon — 
another mirror, plane this time, which 
could rotate and train a searing beam 
of heat on an enemy ship. Would that 
sliip blister ! And they might Jiave 
been able to rotate this satellite at will, 
too 

“Then something happened. Those 
people lost their satellite. Maybe their 
own planet exploded. Maybe their sun 
exploded, and this planet went shooting 
away, and finally our Sun grabbed it. 

“And that’s a fair explanation — the 
only one, as far as I see. Unless, of 
course, it was meant to be something 
that was in the experimental stage and 
was never completed.” 

“The magical mirror,” Colbie inter- 
spersed softly. But neither of them then 
knew exactly what magical character- 
istics it did possess. 

FOR A MOMENT they were silent. 
“Well,” Deverel had a shrug in his 
voice, “we can’t do anything nOw — can 
we ? Shall we eat ?” 

“Why not?” 

They ate in the strange manner neces- 
sitated by spacesuits. By buttons in a 
niche outside their suits they manip- 
ulated levers which reached into a com- 
plicated mechanism, pulling out food 
pills — tasteless things — and water, which 
they sucked through a tube, 

“Now,” said Deverel, smacking his 
lips as if he had just eaten a square 
meal, “this is just another situation, and 
not a fairy tale. Proved it by eating, 
which is so mortal- it’s disgusting. 
Where we bound?” 

“For the bottom ” 

“Ho — not at all! W&’re almost at 



bottom now — notice how the angle’s 
been straightening out? It’s almost 
180® now. Let’s see. Phew !” He had 
looked at his chronometer. “We’ve 
fallen three hundred miles in something 
like eight or nine minutes.” Colbie 
started to protest, but the outlaw said, 
“Sure, to all intents and purposes we’ve 
simply fallen three hundred miles — the 
depth of the mirror. Remember, there 
isn’t any friction that’d hold us back, 
and the inclined surface we came down 
on just guided us. And that means 
we’re going to bounce right back to the 
other rim — see?” 

“Ye gods, yes!” yelled Colbie, then 
grimaced. “But we won’t quite reach 
the rim. Just that damnably small 
amount of friction will hold us back fifty 
or some feet. If there w'eren’t any fric- 
tion things would be simple — we’d reach 
the other rim exactly.” 

“Sure. And climb over. Gravity 

gave us the momentum going down, but 
she’ll occupy herself taking it away at 
the same rate going up.” 

While they had been talking, they 
had passed bottom — quite definitely. 
They were going up, for the angle was 
slowly but surely increasing. 

“We won’t make it,” Colbie said dis- 
consolately. “There’s the rub.” 

In the thoughtfully melancholy voice 
of the Danish prince, Deverel muttered, 
“Aye, there's the rub; for in that sleep 
of death, what dreams may come, when 
we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 
must give us pause.” 

“And that’s appropriate, isn’t it !” Col- 
bie sneered. 

“I played Hamlet once. Long time 
ago, of course, but I was pretty good. 
You know that second act scene where 
he ” 

“Skip it! Forget it — I don't want to 
hear it. Let’s get on. There is this 
friction — infinitesimal. It doesn’t help 
at all when you try to change or retard 
your motion; but in the long run, it’ll 
build up a total resistance great enough 



THE MEN AND THE MIRROR 



87 



to keep us from the rim.” 

“Check, check, and check,” agreed 
the outlaw, touching the fingers of his 
left hand with the index finger of his 
right. 

“That’s our situation. Looks hope- 
less.” 

“Maybe,” Deverel declared. “Let me 
add some further facts. We’re drop- 
ping down at an acceleration of twelve 
feet a second per second. At bottom, 
300 miles down, we had a terrific final 
velocity. Don’t know exactly what it 
is, but there’s a formula for it. Going 
up, gravity will be right on our tails, 
lopping off twelve feet of speed for 
every second. Notice I say up and 
down. I mean it. Our angular speed 
is something else again, and is certainly 
much greater.” 

Then, as he saw Colbie’s impatient 
look, “I don’t know how we get out. 
Normally, when you get in some place, 
you go out the same way — but they 
closed the door on us. And, of course, I 
don’t see how we can change direction.” 

THE IP MAN crossed his legs under 
him the other way for a change. He 
squinted upward. “Getting near top 
again. Damn that light. After a while. 
I’ll go blind.” 

“Shut your eyes,” Deverel told him 
callously, then, “Lord,” he remarked 
whimsically, his cynical, yet friendly, 
eyes crinkling, “I’m glad we’re what we 
are, Colbie. You have to chase me and 
I always feel obliged to run. Then we 
run into the most interesting experi- 
ences. I’ve had plenty of good times 
looting canal boats on Mars — did I ever 
tell you how hard it was squeezing the 
rings off the Empress’ fingers? I used 
plenty of soap and water — and she was 
horrified at the way I wasted the water 
— but somehow I’m glad they got after 
me. And you are, too,” he added as if 
in self-defense'. 

"Sure,” Colbie remarked. “But in a 
way I’m not. You’re a likable fel- 



low. I admit it. But you haven’t got 
the instinct to help make an organized 
unit of society — you’re a gear out ol 
mesh. ’Course, there’s others like you 
— but it’s you I have to take in. I sup- 
pose I’ll do it, too.” 

“Forgetting the mix-up we’re in?” 

“No. Just trying to match your own 
superb confidence in crises like this 
one.” 

“Touche.” The outlaw grinned. “Any 
ideas to match your confidence?” 

“Not a shard.” 

“Me either — yet. By the way” — and 
here Deverel regarded Colbie thought- 
fully — “I’m keeping anything I learn to 
myself — anything that might get us out, 
I mean.” 

“Meaning?” Colbie’s eyes hardened. 

“I’ll sell wliat I know for a price.” 

“Ho ! Freedom, I guess !” Colbie said 
sardonically. 

“Well — not that, exactly. I’ll tell you 
what it is, if I ever get anything to 
sell.” 

Colbie studied him, shrugged his 
shoulders carelessly. He looked over 
his shoulder, but he didn’t yet see the 
approaching rim. 

“Our angle’s much steeper,” Deverel 
followed his thought. “The rim isn’t far 
away. Couple minutes yet.” 

“We won’t make it though,” Colbie 
said regretfully, “unless there’s some- 
thing else we don’t know anything 
about.” 

In a few minutes, they saw the rim 
outlined against the black sides of an un- 
even mountain range which might have 
been set back from the rim anywhere 
from ten to twenty miles. They re- 
garded its stubborn approach with 
anxiety. 

SO SLOWLY it came toward them 
—and so rapidly their velocity was being 
decreased to the zero point! Nerves 
tensed, fists clenched, eyes strained. But 
intuitively, rather than from any delib- 
erate mental calculation, they felt that 



88 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



they would not reach it. Their ve- 
locity was simply not enough. 

And it wasn’t. Slowly — compared to 
their earlier enormous velocities — they 
rose toward the rim which was so pain- 
fully near, yet so infinitely difficult to 
reach. One moment, then, they wea^e 
rising; the next, falling. There had 
been no pause, or if there had been it 
was nestled close to that infinitesimal 
space of time which man wdll never 
measure. They began to fall. 

In a voice that held worlds of chagrin 
— true to human nature, he had not 
given up hope — Colbie said. “Missed 
it — by about ten vertical feet, as a close 
guess. Next time we swing across this 
damned mirror we’ll miss it by twenty 
feet.’’ 

“Something like that,’’ Deverel agreed 
abstratedly. At the moment they had 
fallen, he had noted the time down to the 
exact fraction of a second. And he kept 
it in mind. Not lliat he had any idea 
of its ultimate benefit then, but he felt 
it might be a good thing to know. 
“Let’s see,” he was muttering to him- 
self, and using Colbie’s phrase, went on, 
“the time for one swing across ” 

And he didn’t finish the sentence. For 
an idea, a conception so alluring, so ut- 
terly startling, leaped into his mind, 
that he drew his breath inward through 
his suddenly meeting teeth. “Lord !” he 
whispered, and almost as if he were 
stunned, he dropped back, lying full 
length, his head cupped in the palms of 
his joined hands. And he saw the stars. 

The two men were zooming along at 
a good fast clip that was building on 
itself. They were guided by the fric- 
tionless stuff of the mirror, and pulled 
by the force of gravity. 

And above were the stars. So cold, 
so remote, so harshly, quietly beautiful. 
Deverel was looking at them, hard. They 
were exciting stars. They never changed 
their position as a whole. They looked 
the same as when they — the men — had 



gone plunging down the curve of the 
mirror. 

V. 

WHILE DEVEREL lay there on his 
back, his brow wrinkled in thought, Col- 
bie watched him, watched him for a good 
many minutes, while they plummeted 
into the depths of the shining bowl. In 
an incredibly short time, they reached 
bottom — and Colbie grew tired of try- 
ing to read the outlaw’s thoughts. He 
tried to rise to his feet. He went 
through a number of gyrations, which 
left him lying face down, looking at his 
own reflection. 

Deverel had come out of his brown 
study, and was watching amusedly. “If 
there were a large enough area on the 
soles of your feet, m’lad, you could 
stand easily enough. But when you sit 
down, the center of gravity of your body 
is considerably lowered, and it’s easy. 
So you’ll never stand up unless by some 
miracle of balance.” 

This bit of wisdom was apparent. Col- 
bie sat down, drew the water tube into 
his mouth, and sucked wdth abandon. 
Then he regarded Deverel knowingly. 
“Been thinking, eh? What about?” 

“The mirror,” Deverel replied sol- 
emnly. “I have to keep it to myself, 
though — sorry !” 

“Likely !” There was a tigerish snarl 
implied in Colbie’s voice overtones. 

Deverel’s worldly wise eyes grew sar- 
donic. “Sure — I’ve been doing a lot of 
figuring, and I’ve found out a lot of 
stuff. Interesting, unusual. But there’s 
something missing, Colbie — something 
I can’t put my finger on. If I had it — 
and I will get it — I could get us out of 
here. Any suggestions?” he concluded, 
regarding Colbie sidewise out of a 
laughing eye. 

“If I had them,” pointedly, “I’d keep 
’em. By the way, are you being fair? 
Withholding imformation ? I’m re- 
ferring to your promise — that you 
wouldn’t try to get away.” 



THE MEN AND THE MIRROR 



89 



"I did make a promise, just as you 
said — that I wouldn’t try to get away. 
And I haven’t. And I won’t until you 
tell me it’s all right if I try. Get it?” 
He fixed Colbie with a rigidly extended 
index finger, and went on in tight tones 
©f significance. “Let’s be ourselves from 
now on, Colbie — outlaw and cop ! Right 
now, we’re just partners in adventure. 
But you, just by saying so, can make us 
what we really are — and I’d be your 
prisoner. D’you see? Do that, Colbie, 
and I’ll get us out of here !” 

Colbie felt a slow flush rising to his 
face. Suddenly he felt utterly humili- 
ated ; felt as if his intelligence had been 
insulted and mocked at. Colbie’s voice 
exploded, an eruption of searing wrath. 
“No! Listen,” he went on in a low, 
deadly, flat voice, “the answer is no. No 
from now on. I don’t give a damn. I 
don’t give a damn if we slide back and 
forth here for eternity — that’s what we’ll 
do if you wait for me to give in to you 
and your damned insulting demand. 

You’ve got the brass ” Colbie 

choked apoplectically, and stopped. He 
waved his arms helplessly, glaring at the 
other man. After a while he went on, 
his voice now even, “You suggest I 
haven’t got the mentality or the resource 
to find my — our — way out of here. 
Maybe I haven’t. Maybe I’m a damned 
dummy. But I’ll tell you something 
that’s going to make you squirm ; you’re 
going to see tne out-bluff you! And 
you’re going to give in to me! Remem- 
ber it.” 

He sank back, glaring. 

DEVEREL’S eyes were popping. 
“Well !” he exclaimed in astonishment. 
“Phew! Glad you got that off your 
chest — ^you sure take the fits!” 

A lot of thought went on under Dev- 
erel’s helmet, and in a way they amused 
him. But they were all directed toward 
one end — escape. This was a new Col- 
bic, an undreamed-of Colbie, he saw 
here, and he was going to be a tough 



nut to crack! So Deverel finally said, 
“You’re going to out-bluff me, you said.” 

“Sure. Now, ever, and always. 
Something else, my dear mental marvel 
— it’s you that’s going to do the think- 
ing.” His voice was contemptuous. 
“Now, go ahead and use that so su- 
perior gray matter you’re claiming.” 

Deverel’s lips twitched. He said, 
shrugging, “If that’s the way you want 
it. But you’re crazy.” 

Colbie refused to answer. 

“Well,” the outlaw laughed lightly,’ 
“Now we’ve got our own personal feud 
mapped out. We won’t be on speaking 
terms for maybe two or three hours. In- 
cidentally, we'll be bored to death. We 
won’t even enjoy ourselves the least 
bit. That’s the way people do when 
they’re mad at each other. If I were 
a kid, or if we were medium-close rela- 
tives, I’d say all right — but we’re two 
grown men.” 

“I get it.” Colbie put a grin on his 
face. 

“Good!” Deverel exclaimed. “Now 
where are we, Colbie? Near the top 
again. There’s the rim, too !” 

It was true. The rim was there — but 
it was not the same section of the rim 
from which they had dropped. Deverel 
realized it. That mountain, that land- 
mark, did not show up against the rim. 
They had gone across the mirror twice. 
By common sense, they should have re- 
turned to their starting point. But had 
they returned, Deverel would have been 
.startled indeed. 

They came to the apex of the second 
trip across — and dropped back, once 
more missing it by an additional ten ver- 
tical feet. Once more they plunged 
downward into the depths of the shining 
bowl. 

On the way down, Colbie was silent. 
Unable to help himself, his thoughts be- 
gan to revolve. How could they get 
out ? But his thoughts revolved futilely. 
He was unable to look at the matter ob- 
jectively. Had he been solving a puz- 



90 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



zle on paper, the answer would have 
come soon enough. He was well enough 
equipped on the laws of motion to have 
solved it. But, being a part of the brain- 
teaser himself, he was helpless. 

But undoubtedly he should have no- 
ticed that the position of the stars in 
the heavens never changed. 

THEY PASSED bottom, went slop- 
ing upward again, in a monotony of 
evenly decreasing speed that was mad- 
dening, at least to Colbie. 

Deverel was not silent. He occupied 
himself in a frivolous manner, talking, 
laughing, cracking- jokes. He enjoyed 
himself thoroughly. He could make 
himself at home anywhere, and in the 
strangest circumstances. It was one of 
his admirable qualities. 

Finally he called, “How about it. 
Lieutenant? Making any headway?’’ 

Colbie came out of it. “Know less 
than I did before,” he admitted sadly. 
The light of the stars, and the light 
which the mirror so faithfully threw 
back into space, were beginning to ir- 
ritate him, too. 

“Damn shame.” Deverel sounded re- 
gretful. “I’ve got a lot of dope on this 
strange vale o’ paradise,” he added 
sadly, “but I can’t find the missing link 
that’d put it to some advantage. And 
to be frank, the time to put it to the 
best advantage will be in less than an 
hour. A crucial moment, I mean.” He 
was staring intently at Colbie. 

“Damn the crucial moment,” Colbie 
said coldly. 

“Well, there’ll be several crucial mo- 
ments,” Deverel said, laughing softly. 
“The best possible times for us to get 
out — ^but I don’t know yet how we’ll 
get out. You say I have to do the 
thinking? But it won’t hurt if we talk 
things over a little, will it?” 

Colbie said it was all right with him. 
After all, the whole thing was up to 
Deverel from now on. No number of 



solutions would help if Deverel didn’t 
give in. 

They discussed the color of the strange 
substance. Did it have one? No, cer- 
tainly not; it absorbed no light, hence 
was the color of any light it reflected. 
Could they, as a single system of two 
bodies, change their direction of motion ? 
No. They were a closed system, and 
as such had a single center of gravity 
which would continue on its present 
course forever, unless some outside force 
intervened. They could jerk, they could 
squirm, but for every action in one di- 
rection, there would be equal reaction 
in the other. Was this substance either 
hot or cold as determined by human 
senses? No. For it could absorb no 
heat, nor could it, therefore, transmit 
heat. The first would convey the im- 
pression of coldness, the second that of 
warmth 

IT WAS AN amusing subject, and 
exhaustless. But Deverel plucked no 
fruit from its many branches. They 
were still hopelessly marooned within 
the bowl of the incredible mirror. 

They hit the apex of the third swing 
across the great mirror — and fell down- 
ward again. They bounced back up 
from the bottom, zoomed upward 
through the sea of luminescence, fell 
downward again the fifth time. 

And Deverel said, “It’s coming. It’s 
here. The first Crucial Moment. But 
we have to pass it up.” 

The sixth apex dwindled away, found 
Deverel looking longingly at the sharply 
rising mountain which he had placed in 
his head as a landmark, “the place they 
had to get back to”. 

“I know when we have to get out,” 
he told Colbie anxiously, “but the how 
of it knocks me ! Every trip across we 
take, w'e fall nearer the bottom by ten 
feet. Right now we’re about sixty feet 
below the plane of the rim of the mir- 
ror. How are we going to rise that 
sixty feet?” 



THE MEN AND THE MIRROR 



91 



“You have me there,” said Colbie 
nonchalantly. 

Deverel regarded him seriously. Col- 
bie was an uncaring idiot — didn’t seem 
to give a damn whether they got out or 
not. But Deverel was beginning to feel 
whole new quantities of respect for the 
IP man. There was certainly more to 
him than he had hitherto suspected. He 
smiled. “Still holding out?” 

Colbie said he was. 

“Well, you know I won’t give in.” 
Deverel said harshly, “I’m supposed to 
be damned fool enough to think my way 
back to Earth with you, back to jail. 
I’ve out-bluffed better men than you, 
Colbie, and I’ll stick this one out, too. 
Are we going to be damned fools? You 
know, if this was off my mind, I could 
devote myself a lot better to the one 
problem that fuddles me up.” 

But Colbie said that he was sorry he 
couldn’t help the outlaw get the suspense 
off his niihd. And Deverel’s teeth closed 
with a snap. Colbie, looking at the hard 
sardonic features, wondered vaguely, 
perhaps with a slight inward shudder, 
what would be the outcome of it all. 

VI. 

THEN ENSUED utter weariness. 
For interminable minute after inter- 
minable minute, they swept dizzyingly 
down and up through the pressing, ach- 
ing mist of light. Their eyes became 
tortured, their brains became inflamed, 
their muscles stiffened, their nerves jan- 
gled. They became irritable and touchy. 
The monotony was man-killing, espe- 
cially in view of the fact that the man- 
ner of their salvation was yet a thing 
of the future — or perhaps a thing of no 
solution. 

Deverel was up against a blank wall, 
and his every word had a snarl in it. 
“There's some way it can be done,” he 
insisted, as they were dropping down 
after the tenth plunge across the great 
mirror. “And I have to find it soon. 



We’re a hundred feet below the rim 
now. You could help me, Colbie — 
you’ve the brains for it, I know you 
have. But you’re lazy, damn it. You 
insist on sitting back there and letting 
me do all the thinking. Suggest some- 
thing, won’t you?” 

Colbie answered seriously, “Deverel, 
I have been thinking. But it’s no good. 
What is it you know? What strange 
characteristics has the mirror got that 
both you and I don’t already know?” 
He paused, shaking his head, “I can't 
see the trees for the forest — I’ll admit 
it.” He was genuinely sorry he couldn’t 
help, and was more than a little touched 
by the outlaw’s desperate search for the 
final link in the chain he had evidently 
fabricated. “Why not tell me what it’s 
all about?” he suggested. “Maybe I 
can go on from what you’ve found out.” 

“No sale!” Deverel snorted angrily. 
“What I know is my trump card — 
you’d know as much as I do. Wouldn’t 
do me any good.” 

“Won’t do you any good, anyway — 
unless you give in.” Colbie grinned 
easily. 

“And you can bet everything you’ve 
got I won’t!” Deverel snapped. And 
then looked queerly at Colbie. “You 
really have made up your mind, haven’t 
you?” he demanded. He shrugged his 
shoulders sulkily. “But maybe you'll 
change it. That’s what I’m banking on, 
anyway. You’re not the type that can 
hold out forever.” 

Colbie shrugged his own shoulders in 
indifference, and then crossed his legs a 
different way. Thinking better of it, he 
lay flat on his back, and by virtue of 
swinging his arms one way and his 
legs the other, started to whirl about. 
Elsewhere, the action might have seemed 
childish, but here it was one of a strictly 
limited number of amusements. 

While this aimless gyration, which, 
once started, continued unabated, may 
have amused Colbie at first, it very soon 
had a much different effect. Abruptly 



92 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



he sat up — still spinning lazily — and 
stared at Deverel. A slow grin ap- 
peared on his lips, went into temporary 
eclipse as he turned around, and ap- 
peared again as the rope holding them 
together wound up about him. “Your 
difficulty,” he asked judiciously, “lies in 
being unable to make up for that 100 
feet or so we’ve lost to friction, I take 
it?” 

Deverel looked at him keenly and 
nodded. 

COLB IE’S FACE split in a slow, 
broad grin. “I haven’t got it all fig- 
ured out. I said I’d let you do that. 
But I know how to make up for that 
difference. It takes cooperation, and 
maybe if you know how to do it, you’ll 
give me the rest of that information 
sooner. Because I won’t cooperate till 
you do. You think what I was doing, 
and you’ll get it.” 

Deverel looked at him blankly. Then 
— “I’ve got it!” he gurgled. “I knew it 
could be done — and it’s easy!” 

He was talking rapidly, excitedly. 
“I’ve got the whole thing worked out, 
now. Everything I need! It’s only a 
question of waiting. Two or three more 

times across the mirror Now 

listen,” he went on rapidly. “You have 
to tell me it’s all right. This’ll get us 
out, both of us. You will, won’t you?” 
he demanded anxiously. 

Then he saw Colbie’s mask of a face 
and shouted furiously, “Don’t be a 
damned fool, Colbie! You don’t want 
to die, do you? You know you won’t 
be able to stand death from lack of 
water and food — ^you know it! Now’s 
the time to make up your mind.” He 
was feverish. 

“I made up my mind quite a while 
ago,” Colbie pointed out. “If I hadn’t, 
I wouldn’t have contributed your clinch- 
ing link just now.” 

Deverel laughed harshly. “You’re 
going to stick with it,” he jeered. 



“You’re going to let a principle kill you! 
Well, I’m going to let it kill me, too — 
and I’m not as scared of death as you 
are. In fact, it’d be better if I did 
die; I’ve got too much hell in store 
for me, one way and another. So I 
don’t really care. How do you like 
that?” he ripped out savagely. 

“It’s all right with me — I always 
knew you didn’t give much of a damn 
about anything, Deverel.” He smiled 
disarmingly. 

Deverel regarded him in blank amaze- 
ment, an amazement that swiftly turned 
into sheer, obvious admiration. Until 
that moment, Deverel had doubted that 
Colbie was sure of his intentions; now 
he knew it, and the knowledge gave him 
a new picture of Colbie. 

Colbie yawned ; and then Deverel’s 
rage apparently broke all bounds. He 
called Colbie every foul name under the 
Sun, reviled him with the unprintable 
verbal scum of innumerable space ports 
— and then stopped short. 

“Hell, I didn’t mean that,” he mut- 
tered. He waved a hand. “Sorry — I 
mean it. It’s just that” — he summoned 
a grin — “there went the second Crucial 
Moment. Rather, the minute we drop 
down from the eleventh apex — there it 
goes. It’s about a minute away. We’re 
now, to all intents and purposes, a mean 
one hundred ten feet below the rim. 
Phew!” 

“What are these crucial moments?” 
Colbie enquired in genuine bewilder- 
ment. 

Deverel laughed in amused disgust. 
“There are several of them — I think. 
And the more of them we pass up, the 
more crucial the next one is. Get it? 
At last we come to the Final Crucial 
Moment! And after we pass that up 

” Deverel shook his head. “After 

that, there’s no more hope. No more 
Crucial Moments.” After a while, he 
said listlessly, “I’ll tell you when they 
come around.” 



THE MEN AND THE MIRROR 



93 



THEY SWEPT DOWN and they 
swept lip. Angles decreased and angles 
increased. The rim loomed up through 
the gloom of light, and dropped away. 
Constant acceleration, followed by just 
as constant deceleration. And light and 
still more light and nothing else but 
light. 

Two men against the magical mirror! 

Seventeen times the rim dropped 
away, and each time they approached 
it was farther away — ten feet higher 
than before. And then Deverel re- 
marked wearily, “The third Crucial Mo- 
ment — one hundred seventy feet below 
the rim.” He cocked an eye — a bleary 
eye— at Colbie, who was so exhausted 
and blinded by the incessant play of light 
from the mirror that he was apathetic. 
"What are you thinking about?” 

“Just waiting,” Colbie returned 
tiredly, “for you to give the word I” 

Deverel laughed harshly. “And I’ll 
never give it. Listen. In less than 
an hour comes the ” 

“The fourth Crudal Moment,” put 
in Colbie acidly. 

“Wrong. The final.” He waited for 
this to take effect, but it had none at all. 
Then he snarled, “You’re going to hold 
•ut — good Lord!” For a moment he 
was speechless, glaring at the other 
man. Then unaccountably, he laughed. 
"We’re two of a kind — two stubborn 
fools. I didn’t know you had it in 
you,” he remarked frankly. “I really 

believe you’re going to ” and he 

broke off. 

“That I’m going to hold out past the 
time that really means something to 
us?” Colbie asked him quizzically. He 
nodded slowly. 

Deverel sank back in disgust. 

They topped the eighteenth, the nine- 
teenth, the twentieth apex. Deverel was 
jumpy, irritated. “About half an hour,” 
he said nervously. “That’s all we’ve 
got. I mean it. When that time goes, 
then we kiss life good-by. I wish you’d 
see reason, Colbie. Either we both die 



—or I go free, and you live, too, and 
we’re just as if we never came to this 
planet. Just think of that — life again!” 

Deverel watched Colbie intently, but 
the IP man was absolutely unaffected. 
The outlaw had been hoping against 
hope that Colbie would, in the last vital 
moments, give in. He had determined 
to wait that long, just on the chance. 
Now that chance was definitely out, and 
Deverel had to play a card he had long 
ago decided to use if worst came to 
worst. It might win — and it might lose. 

So in the next few moments — with the 
verve and ability of a natural actor (he 
had played Hamlet when he was a 
younger man) — he increased his nerv- 
ousness, the desperation of his manner, 
the snarl fn his voice. 

“Twenty-five minutes, Colbie. Give 
us plenty of time.” Colbie was ob- 
durate. They were on the twenty-sec- 
ond trip across. Deverel’s rasping 
voice went on later, “Twenty minutes. 
And here comes the rim.” 

THE RIM CAME toward them, 
slowly. More and more slowly, and 
then gently started dropping away. The 
twenty-third trip. 

“Fifteen minutes, Colbie.” Deverel’s 
vojce had the rasp of a buzz saw in it. 
He was actually nervous now. The 
amount of time was pretty small. So 
that suddenly he said in a tone of voice 
that was deprived of every trace of 
moisture, “Colbie.” 

Colbie met his eyes, and what he saw 
there made his own open wider. 

“You guessed it, Colbie.” The out- 
law’s tone was dull. He spread his 
hands. “I’m done. I’ve cracked. Good 
Lord!” he burst out. “You don’t give 
a damn ! That’s what gets me — I can’t 
understand it. Listen — you may think 
I’m scared to die, that I’m not the kind 
of fellow I’ve painted myself to be — but 
I am. I’m careless with my life. I 
won’t care at all when my number’s 
due. What I can’t stand is the fact that 



94 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



it isn’t due! There’s a way out. And 
it’s only your stubborn refusal that’s 
blocking the way. But I guess when 
you come down to it, it’s me ” 

“It’s I ’’ Colbie corrected mildly. 

“It’s I that’s blocking the way. So I 
give up. ■ You win. You’re the world- 
beater of this crowd. You’re the cham- 
pion holder-outer, the prince of don’t- 
give-a-damners ! Colbie, you’ve got me 
in tears. Honest, I feel like blubbering 
like a kid. I can’t understand you — 
sitting there ’’ he groped. 

The IP man regarded Deverel stead- 
ily. “You’re funny,” he muttered. “I 
knew you’d give in, just because of that. 
You have dash — impulsiveness — a quick 
love of life. I'm just a stolid space- 
cop.” 

And Deverel suddenly thrust out his 
jaw angrily. “I gave in, didn’t I. And 
don't think I haven’t got half a no- 
tion to take it back. I’m capable of it.” 
His eyes challenged the other’s. 

Colbie said slowly, “No. Don’t do it 
— forget it. We were fools — ^you de- 
cided not to be one. That’s all there is 
to it.” Once more he met the eyes of 
the other man, this time thoughtfully, 
then he nodded his head in slow de- 
termination. His head came up, and a 
sparkle entered his eyes. 

“What do we do?” he demanded. 
“Spill it — let’s get out of this forsaken 
place. I don’t like the lighting arrange- 
ments! Come on !” 

Deverel went into action. 

“Wind yourself up on this rope,” his 
voice cracked out, full of the energy of 
real desperation now. “Closer — come 
on! All right.” He braced his feet 
against Colbie, and pushed. Colbie went 
whirling dizzily away, the rope uncoil- 
ing. He came to the end of the rope. 
Deverel then pulled in such a manner 
that he utilized to the fullest extent 
Colbie’s rotatory motion. Colbie came 
spinning back, winding up. Deverel 
lashed out with his feet. Colbie un- 
wound again, this time in a new direc- 



tion. Time after time he came back, 
whirled away again. Deverel manip- 
ulated Colbie in the same way a small 
boy does a certain toy called the jo-jo. 

Swiftly, each was swinging around 
the other in an ellipse with a shifting 
axis. 

“GET IT?” panted Deverel. “We’ve 
got a circular motion started. It isn’t 
affecting our course in the slightest, 
though. We’re a closed system. For 
every action a reaction. I’m swinging 
around you, too. Now, you stop spin- 
ning — it isn’t necessary now.” Colbie 
flailed «bout with his arms and, in the 
course of two revolutions, swung around 
Deverel in a true circle. And all the 
while they w’ere hurtling up the slope 
of the mirror, at a rate dictated by no 
other force than the retarding power of 
gravity. 

Deverel was gasping. “Now — draw up 
on the rope. Pulls us nearer the center 
of the circle we’re making and we go 
faster — our angular velocity increases. 
Now we’re going.” 

And they were. By dint of prodigious 
exertions, they worked their angular 
velocity up to such a point that the 
centrifugal force was putting a terrific 
strain on their laboring lungs. 

And finally the outlaw gasped, 
“Enough! We’re going plenty fast. If 
we go any faster, we'll split wide open. 
We’d keep on whirling like this until the 
slight bit of friction wore it down — that 
is, if we didn’t use it to escape this trap. 
And we’re going to use it, too! The 
rim should be along in — two minutes, 
seventeen seconds flat. Oh, yes, I fig- 
ured that out to the hair’s breadth.” 

Suddenly he was shouting out loud, 
“And there it is — the rim! Now, look, 
honest to God, I don’t know which of 
us is going over.” His eyes feverishly 
watched the approach of the rim, when- 
ever it swung into his line of vision. It 
was etched against the mountains. 
Throbbing seconds beat away into the 



THE MEN AND THE MIRROR 



95 



past. Colbie’s pulses were hammering. 
How often afterward he thought of the 
snapping suspense the looming mirror 
engendered in him then ! It was like a 
monster — mysterious and brutal. Dev- 
erel’s voice came again, “I think it’s go- 
ing to be you. It has to be you! Yes! 

“We’re a closed system, remember. 
Now say we have an explosion. You 
fly that way, I fly the other. But we 
each retain the kinetic energy given us 
by centrifugal force.” 

Cocking a wild, red-rimmed, bleary 
eye on the approaching rim, he coiled 
himself up two feet nearer Colbie. They 
gyrated more swiftly. Colbie shouted 
in protest. 

Deverel snarled, “Can’t help it. The 
rope has to be parallel to the rim the 
minute we hit the apex.” He blinked 
his eyes to get the sweat out, looked at 
the chronometer above his eyes. Seven 
seconds to go. Deverel was shudder- 
ing — he had so damned many things to 
do at once. He had to regulate their 
angular velocity — ^liis timing sense — the 
sense which tells us how many whole 
steps we can make to reach a curb ex- 
actly — was telling him how many gyra- 
tions they would make in order to hang 
poised, for an infinitesimal second, paral- 
lel to the rim. With one hand, he had to 
extract a razor-sharp knife from an out- 
side space kit. And he had to keep an 
eye on his chronometer, for he had to 
know exactly when they reached the 
apex of this, the twenty-third trip across 
the great mirror. 

And perhaps the greatest miracle of 
that whole insane adventure was that 
everything worked itself out just as 
Deverel was planning. The rope, its 
human weights swinging dizzily at its 
ends, came parallel to the mirror’s rim 
on the exact, non-existing moment they 
reached the climb’s apex. And in that 
exact moment, Deverel slashed at the 
rope close to where it was fastened about 
him. 



VII. 

COLBIE experienced no change of 
pace — simply a sudden release of pres- 
sure. The operation had been smoothly 
performed. At the exact moment when 
they, as a single system, had no upward 
and no downward motion, Deverel had 
severed the rope. Colbie simply shot 
straight toward the rim at the velocity 
he had been rotating at that particular 
moment. 

He plummeted up the slope of the 
mirror, gravity now definitely fighting 
him. He lost twelve feet in upward 
velocity every second. Would the 
kinetic energy his body now contained 
be sufficient to stave off that deadly de- 
celeration? Would gravity whittle it 
down to zero, somewhere below the rim. 

“Colbie,” he gritted, speaking softly 
to himself, “if you’ve never prayed be- 
fore, try it now !” 

And perhaps tlie prayers did the trick, 
or it might have been the computations 
Deverel’s keen brain worked out. Using 
the factors of their individual weights 
on this planet, and the two-hundred- 
foot-length of rope, and the time for one 
revolution, he had known the approx- 
imate kinetic energy each man would 
develop, had known that Colbie would 
go over the rim with a liberal margin 
to spare. 

Up past the rim Colbie shot. Over 
the rim — and up into space. And there, 
fifty feet above the planet, he stopped 
rising. The moment of falling was 
heart-stopping. His space suit was 
tough — but would it stand the strain? 
He didn’t have much time to theorize 
about it. He hit, and he hit hard. He 
felt as if every bone in his body was 
crushed in the moment before his con- 
sciousness faded away. 

When he came back to consciousness, 
he knew a sharp, agonizing pain below 
the knee of his right leg. “Broken,” he 
thought dismally, and grimaced as he 
almost involuntarily tried to move the 



96 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



injured member. He couldn’t move it 
at all. 

Then the thought of Deverel came 
back. Good Lord, he was still on the 
mirror! - 

“Deverel !’’ he shouted. 

A cheery voice came back. “All here 
and right as rain.” Then the voice 
became anxious. “What’s wrong? I 
was trying to get in touch with you.” 

“Broken leg, I guess.” 

“Hurt?” 

“Damnably !” Colbie gritted his teeth. 

“I was afraid something like that 
would happen,” the outlaw answered 
with sympathy. “I’m sorry it had to 
be you — I would have taken the rap if 
we’d have swung around right. But 
we didn’t. That was my gamble for 
escape.” 

“How are you getting out?” Colbie 
demanded. Then in sudden panic, 
“And what if you break a leg?” 

“Ho! I’ll get out, and I won’t break 
a leg either. I have to travel across the 
mirror you know, and I’ll lose ten ver- 
tical feet. How far did you fall?” he 
asked anxiously. Colbie told him. 
“Fine! Not bad at all for a rough 
calc.” 

“You did a fine job all around,” Col 
bie told him feelingly. “That’s right, 
you’ll go over the rim, too. You’ve got 
gravitational and centrifugal force act- 
ing on you.” 

“NOW LISTEN, Colbie, you’re on 
the wrong part of the rim, d’you know 
that ?” 

No, Colbie hadn’t known it. So their 
ships were on the other side? 

“No, not on the other side. About 
a sixth of the circle of the rim around 
from where you are.” 

“Well, then, where are you bound?” 

“For the ships.” 

Colbie gasped. “You’re crazy! 
You’re headed directly opposite from 
where I am.” 

“Oh, no. I’m not,” Deverel sang 



sweetly. “I’m headed right for a point 
on the mirror a sixth of its rim removed 
from you in the direction the planet ro- 
tates. Now quit gasping like a fish, and 
listen to the most gorgeous and unbe- 
lievable part of this whole adventure. 
Do you think we went straight across 
the mirror?” 

“Certainly!” 

“We didn’t! Now here’s the bomb- 
shell ” He paused, and then said, 

'‘We were the bob of a pendulum!” 

“What?” Colbie shouted it in dis- 
may. “Lord, Deverel, you’re crazy, 
crazy as a loom! A pendulum! We 
weren’t hanging from anything, from a 
string, or cable or — Lord !” 

“Getting it ?” The voice was sympa- 
thetic. “Don’t you see? We were a 
pendulum. And the beautiful part was 
that we didn’t need to hang from any- 
thing so we could vibrate. A string, or 
something like that, would have ruined 
the effect entirely. As it is, we were a 
perfect, simple pendulum, the which that 
has, so far, existed only in theory ! See, 
there wasn’t any friction, and there was 
a perfect vacuum. There was just 
gravity. It pulled us down and up and 
down and up and down and up. And 
there was a force which wouldn’t let us 
travel in any path except a perfect curve, 
the path a pendulum takes ! 

“And what is so characteristic of the 
pendulum? Why, the periods of vibra- 
tion are the same! Do you think that 
knowledge didn’t come in handy when I 
wanted to know to the dot, exactly when 
we’d reach the apex? You bet it did! 
And then there’s something else about a 
pendulum — I’m surprised you didn’t no- 
tice. At the Earth’s pole the plane of 
vibration of a pendulum turns around 
once every twenty-four hours, in a di- 
rection opposite to that at which the 
Earth rotates. Rather, it appears that 
way. Actually, it is the Earth that turns 
around under the pendulum ! And that’s 
what happened to us. Didn’t you notice 



THE MEN AND THE MIRROR 



97 



that the stars as a whole never changed 
positions all during the time we were 
on the mirror? They didn’t. We were 
a pendulum. The plane of our vibration 
was fixed in relation to space. This 
crazy planet revolved around under us 
because there wasn’t any friction to say 
‘no’ ! So I figured it out diagramatically 
■ — right ! In my head ! And if you think 
that wasn’t a brain-twister ! 

“I timed the first two or three vibra- 
tions after this pendulum stuff came 
up and hit me. I found each trip across 
took 17 minutes, 45 4/10 seconds. And 
I knew the period of rotation of this 
planet — 52 minutes, 25 and a fraction 
seconds. Notice anything about those 
figures, any general relation?” 

‘T get it,” Colbie replied. He was 
sweating. His leg felt numb from the 
hip down. “One vibration took about 
one-third as long as the planet takes to 
make a revolution.” 

"Exactly! I’ll keep talking, Colbie, 
help you forget the leg. And not only 
that, but the bottom of the mirror is a 
pole of the planet ! So we were a true 
pendulum, vibrating at a planet’s pole. 
And the length of our ‘string’, the ra- 
dius of the sphere, of which the mirror 
is a part, was out in space about 1600 
miles ) 

“NOW IN OUR vibrations, we al- 
ways went through the center of the 
mirror, but we never went across to the 
other side. That is, one swing always 
began and ended in one-half the mirror. 
In relation to space, our plane of vi- 
bration was always the same ; in relation 
to the mirror, it was a curve which crept 
around the mirror, touching the rim six 
times. 

“I had the devil of a time!” Deverel 
exclaimed. “I had to formulate a law 
which would tell me absolutely where 
each vibration would end, on the mir- 
ror, and thus how many times we’d have 
to swing across before we got back to 



our starting point — our original start- 
ing point. And finally I got this: One 
swing from rim to rim ends at that 
point on the rim which is opposite its 
starting point at end of swing. Get it? 
Well, if you don’t, draw a diagram of 
a circle divided into six sixty-degree 
wedges — and follow the law out.” And 
Colbie actually did draw such a dia- 
gram later. “In other words, it took 
us six swings from rim to rim to bring 
us back to our starting point. Those 
were the Crucial Moments. If we’d 
have got out at the wrong places. Colbie, 
we’d have starved before we travelled 
the distance back to the ships^ — if we 
knew where they were. Then, too, there 
was a chance one of us would end up 
pretty badly hurt! And one of us did 
— you had to drop back further than I’ll 
have to. 

“And that’s all there is to it. I let 
you out at the end of the twenty-third 
trip from rim to rim. I’m getting out 
at the end of the twenty-fourth — what I 
really believe would have been the Final 
Crucial Moment. We couldn’t have 
developed enough centrifugal force to 
send us over the rim if we’d gone around 
the mirror six more times, and fallen, 
as a consequence, sixty additional feet 
farther away from it. How’s your leg ?” 
he inquired. 

“Rotten!” Colbie muffled a groan. 

“Keep your chin up !” Deverel 
snapped. “Seven minutes and I’ll be 
over the rim, and I’ll hot-foot it back to 
the ships. It may take several hours 
before I get back here,” he added in 
anxiety. 

“I’ll be all right,” Colbie mumbled. 

In the next few hours they kept in 
constant touch. Deverel made the rim, 
landed unharmed. He set off across the 
gouged plateau with both speed and 
care. He made the ships unharmed; 
and less than fifteen minutes later, the 
most beautiful sight in the world for 
Colbie was the sight of that slim, black 



96 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



IPF cruiser as it came zooming above 
Cyclops straight toward him. 

It landed. Deverel stepped out. He 
picked Colbie up in his strong arms, 
carried him inside the ship, took off his 
space suit, and bared his broken leg. 
It was a simple fracture, and %vas still 
in a healthy condition. Deverel went 
to work on it, put it in splints after hav- 
ing given it a wrench which accom- 
plished the dual purpose of sending Col- 
bie into a faint and setting the broken 
bone. Deverel put it in splints, and then 
bundled the IP man into bed. 

SIX WEEKS LATER, when Colbie 
was able to hobble around on a make- 
shift crutch, Deverel was still there. 

“You make a nice nurse,” Colbie told 
him over a meal one day. “Thanks — a 
lot.” 

“Skip it!” the outlaw grinned. “You 
weren’t such a bad nurse yourself. I’d 
have been gone before now if you hadn’t 
stepped in.” He gulped a cup of coffee. 
“You’re well enough, I figure,” he said 
unea.'iily. “ ’Bout time to go ?” 

Thoughtfully, uneasily, Colbie said, 
“Sure — I guess it is.” 

So that the next day Deverel sat down 
at the controls and touched them lightly. 
The ship shot upward into the eternal 
night of Cyclops, zoomed feather-light 
out over the strangest, most magical 
mirror ever to exist. And Colbie, look- 
ing at it, knew that he would always 
think of it with more affection than fear. 
He would always think of it as a child’s 
colossal toy. It had so many amusing 
characteristics that he half-way felt it’d 
be a pleasure to go zooming down its in- 
finitely smooth surface once again. 

A dream world, he thought, if there 
ever was one. 

Once landed near Colbie’s ship, the 
outlaw said sardonically, “I guess we 
transfer from this ship to yours ?” 

Colbie met his eyes seriously for a 
moment, then got up from where he was 



sitting, and limped back and forth ip the 
close confines of the cabin. His teeth 
were set, his eyes frowning, his fists 
opening and closing. He sat down 
agjun and got up. The look on his face 
was almost savage. 

Suddenly he waved a hand violently, 
and a snarl contorted his features. He 
swung around, looking at the outlaw 
with hot, gray eyes. “I can’t do it !” he 
snapped. He shoved out his jaw. “Not 
after what we’ve been through. Damn 
it, Deverel,” he panted, “I don’t like 
this job. I feel too friendly for you. 
I like you too damn much. You’re a 
real guy. Hell, you could have run out 
any time you wanted to in the past six 
weeks. 

“No. No. I can’t do it. It’d be like” 
— he groped — “like taking unfair ad- 
vantage. somehow. So,” he said bit- 
terly, “you’re free.” He forced a smile 
onto his face. “I’ll write it in my re- 
port like this — ‘Captured outlaw, but he 
put one over on me and escaped.’ ” 

“Right,” Deverel agreed steadily. 

“So I’ll be going. I’ll be here for, 
oh, about twenty-four hours. You go- 
ing any place in particular?” he en- 
quired politely. 

“No-o-o,” Deverel replied thought- 
fully. “Don’t know as I have any par- 
ticular destination. Drop you a post- 
card ? I will, if you think you need me 
for anything.” 

“Don’t bother. I never have much 
trouble finding you,” Colbie said airily. 
Then he put on a space suit. Deverel 
worked the valves, and a moment later 
Colbie stood in the air-lock. For a mo- 
ment the two men stood there, saluting 
each other with grave eyes. Then the 
inner door closed and the outer opened. 

Deverel watched Colbie enter his ship. 

Then he sat down and, incandescent 
gases flaring from her stern jets, the 
slim cruiser accelerated until it \yas 
swallowed up in the trackless, illimita- 
ble wastes of space. 



99 



IN TIMES TO COME 

THE Analyfieal Laboratory requires a little comment this time. The Legion 
of Time was an easy first place. Three Thousand Years! was second. Then the 
fight began. Furthermore, Catastrophe was not listed, since it was not a story but 
an article. But — it just barely nosed out Island of the Individualists in actual 
comments! The first time an article has rated anything like that. 

BUT equally interesting was the reaction on R4 for the Rajah. That was 
printed experimentally, to find how readers liked that genuinely unusual method of 
treatment. Actually, Legion of Time alone got more comment — but the comment 
on RA for the Rajah was neatly and exactly divided between a row of O's and 
— '$ and a row of and \/’s. It was definitely a mixed reaction — but it was noticed 
and commented on. Thank you! 

AND for August. Burks is back — but with a completely new kind of story-treat- 
ment. Hell Ship concerns a spaceship — operating, incidentally, on a wholly new 
type of driving theory — but more particularly, a man. Meet Josh McNab, Scotch 
engineer of the good ship S.S. Arachne. You'll see the engineroom of the Araehne 
on the cover, incidentally. 

DON A. STUART has a long novelette. It's placed in Antarctica — for a reason. 
It had to be there for that is the only place on the face of the Earth where there is no 
animal life whatever — and Stuart discusses a thing that must be isolated. A deadly 
imitation. The story's problem lies in the title — Who Goes There? 

FOR one of the high places on a coming Analytical Laboratory, I nominate 
A. B. L. Macfadyen's Jason Comes Heme, also in the August issue. You'll find it 
unusuol and good. Warner Van Lome's Resilient Planet will appear in August, 
and an exceedingly interesting article on rocketry by Willy Ley — Orbits, Take-offs 
and Landings. Rockets are based on Newton's Second Law, but I can't remember 
any writer who has pointed out and stressed the First Law of Rockets, brought out in 
this article. 

FINALLY, there will be a new author with os next month. Royal S. Heckman starts 
with Asteroid Pirates and the bullet-proof, highly intelligent Saturnian Apes. 





THE ANALYTICAL 


LABORATORY 


1. 


The Legion of Time 


Jack Williamson 


2. 


Three Thousand Years! 


Thomas Calvert McClary 


3. 


Static 


Kent Casey 


4. 


The Brainstorm Vibration 


M. Schere 


5. 


Island of the Individualists 


Nat Schachner 



AST— 7 



100 



The Dangerous 

By L. Ron 

A name well-known to adventure 
in ASTOUNDING — with a tale 
to move bodily on the wings of 



( Author^ s Note: For reasons perti- 
nent to the happiness of Mankind, by re- 
quest from the United States Philosophic 
Society and the refusal of Dr. Henry 
Mudge, Ph. D., of Yamouth University, 
the philosophic equation mentioned 
herein is presented only as Equation C 
without further expansion. LRH ) 

T he room was neither mean nor 
dingy. It was only cluttered. 
The great bookcases had gaps in 
their ranks and the fallen members lay 
limp-leaved on floor and table. The car- 
pet was a snowdrift of wasted paper. 
The stuffed owl on the mantel was awry 
because the lined books there had fallen 
sideways, knocking the owl around and 
over to peck dismally at China on the 
globe of the world. The writing desk 
was heaped with tottering paper towers. 
And still Dr. Mudge worked on. 

His spectacles worried him because 
they kept falling down in front of his 
eyes; a spot of ink was on his nose and 
his right hand was stained blue-black. 

The world could have exploded with- 
out in the least disturbing Yamouth’s 
philosophic professor. In his head 
whirled a maelstrom of philosophy, 
physics and higher mathematics and, 
if examined from within, he w'ould have 
seemed a very brave man. 

Examined from without it was a dif- 
ferent matter. For one thing. Dr. 
Mudge w'as thin. For another, he was 
bald. He was a small man and his head 
was far too big for his body. His nose 
was long and his eyes were unusually 



bright. His thin hands gripped book 
and pen as every atom of his being was 
concentrated upon his work. 

Once he glanced up at the clock with 
a worried scowl. It was six-thirty and 
he must be done in half an hour. He 
had to be done in half an hour. That 
would give him just time enough to rush 
down to the University and address the 
United States Philosophic Society. 

He had not counted on this abrupt 
stab of mental lightning. He had thought 
to deliver a calm address on the subject, 
“Was Spinoza Right in Turning Down 
the Professorship of. . . .” But 
when he had begun to delve for a key to 
Spinoza, a truly wonderful idea had 
struck him and out he had sailed, at two 
that day, to dwell wholly in thought. He 
did not even know that he was cramped 
from sitting so long in one place. 

“Hen-r-r-r-e-e-e-e !” came the clarion 
call. 

Henry failed to hear it. 

“HEN-r-r-r-ry!” 

Again he did not look up. 

“HENRY MUDGE! Are you going 
to come in here and eat your dinner or 
not ? I” 

He heard that time, but with less than 
half an ear. He did not come fully back 
to the world of beefsteak and mashed 
potatoes until Mrs. Doolin,- his house- 
keeper, stood like a thundercloud in the 
study door. She was a big woman with 
what might be described as a forceful 
personality. She was' very righteous, 
and when she saw the state of that study 
she drew herself up something on the 



101 




Dimension 

Hubbard 

readers makes its first appearance 
of a philosopher who learned 
thought — and couldn *t stop moving. 



Blinded by the brilliant sheen of the door — numbed by the bombarding 
thought-waves of the Martians, Mudge stumbled and fell to his knees. 




102 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



order of a general about to order an ex- 
ecution. 

“Henry ! What have you been doing ? 
And look at you! A smudge on your 
nose — and on ink spot on your coat!" 

HENRY MIGHT fight the universe, 
but Mrs. Doolin was tlie bogey-man of 
Henry’s life. Ten years before she had 
descended upon him and since that time 
there had b^n for him 

"Yes, Lizzie,” said Henry, aware for 
the first time of his stiffness and sud- 
denly very tired. 

“Are you coming to dinner or aren’t 
you? I called you a half hour ago and 
the beefsteak will be ruined. And you 
must dress. What on earth’s gotten into 
you, Henry Mudge?” 

“Yes, Lizzie,” said the doctor placat- 
ingly. He came slowly to his feet and 
his joints cracked loudly. 

“What have you done to this place?” 

Some of the fire of his enthusiasm 
swept into Henry. “Lizzie, I think I 
have it !” And that thought swept even 
Lizzie Doolin out of the room as far as 
he was concerned. He took a few ex- 
cited steps around the table, raised his 
glasses up on his forehead and gleamed. 
“I think I’ve got it!” 

“What?” demanded Lizzie Doolin. 

“The equation. Oh, this is wonderful. 
This is marvelous ! Lizzie, if I am 
right, there is a condition without di- 
mension. A negative dimenson, Lzzie. 
Think of it! And all these years they 
have been trying to find the fourth posi- 
tive dimension and now by working 
backwards ” 

“Henry Mudge, what are you talking 
about ?” 

But Henry had dived into the abstract 
again and the lightning was flashing in- 
side his head. “The negative dimen- 
sion ! Epistemology !” 

“What?” 

He scarcely knew she was there. 
“Look, think of it ! You know what you 
can do with your mind. Mentally you 



can think you are in Paris. Zip, your 
mind has mentally taken you to Paris! 
You can imagine yourself swimming in 
-a river and zip! you are mentally swim- 
ming in a river. But the body stays 
where it is. And why, Lizzie? Why?" 

“Henry Mudge !” 

“But there is a negative dimension. I 
am sure there is. I have almost for- 
mulated it and if I can succeed ” 

“Henry Mudge, your dinner is get- 
ting cold. Stop this nonsense ” 

But he had not heard her. Suddenly 
he gripped his pen and wrote. And on 
that blotted piece of paper was set down 
Equation C. 

He was not even aware of any change 
in him. But half his brain began to stir 
like an uneasy beast. And then the other 
half began to stir and mutter. 

And on the sheet before him was 
Equation C. 

“Henry Mudge !” said Lizzie with 
great asperity, “if you don’t come in here 
and eat your dinner this very minute 

” She advanced upon him as the 

elephant moves upon the dog. 

Henry knew in that instant that he 
had gone too far with her. .^nd half 
his brain recognized the danger in her. 
For years he had been in deadly terror 
of her 

“I wish I was in Paris,” Henry shiv- 
ered to himself, starting to back up. 

Whup! 

“Cognac, m’sieu?” said the waiter. 

“Eh ?” gaped Henry, glancing up from 
the sidewalk table. He could not take 
it in. People were hurrying along the 
Rue de la Paix, going home as the hour 
was very late. Some of the cafes were 
already closed. 

"Cognac o vin blanc, m’sieu?" in- 
sisted the waiter. 

“Really,” said Henry. “I don’t drink. 
I — is this Paris?” 

“Of a certainty, m’sieu. Perhaps one 
has already had a sip too much ?” 



THE DANGEROUS DIMENSION 



103 



“No, no! I don’t drink,” said Henry, 
frightened to be in such a position. 

The waiter began to count the saucers 
on the table. “Tlien, m’sieu has done 
well for one who does not drink. Forty 
francs, m’sieu.” 

Henry guiltily reached into his pocket. 
But his ink-stained jacket was not his 
street coat. He had carpet slippers on 
his feet. His glasses fell down over his 
eyes. And his searching hands told him 
that he possessed not a dime. 

“Please,” said Henry, “I am out of 

funds. If you would let me ” 

“So!” cried the waiter, suavity van- 
ishing. “Then you will pay just the 
same! Gendarme ! GENDARME!” 
“Oh.” shivered Henry and imagined 
himself in the peaceful security of his 

study 

W'hupl 

LIZZIE WAS gaping at him. “Why 
— why wherc—where did you go? Oh, 
it must be my eyes. I know it must be 
my eyes. These fainting spells did mean 
something then. Yes, I am sure of it.” 
She glanced at the clock. “Look, you 
liavcn’t eaten dinner yet! You come 
right into the dining room this instant !” 
Meekly, but inwardly aghast, Henry 
tagged her into the dining room. She 
set a plate before him. He was not very 
liungry, but he managed to eat. He 
was greatly perplexed and upset. The 
negative dimension had been there after 
all. And there was certainly no diffi- 
culty stepping into it and out of it. Mind 
was everything, then, and body nothing. 

Or mind could control lx)dy Oh, 

it was very puzzling, he decided at 
length. 

“What are you dreaming about?” 
challenged Lizzie. “Get upstairs and get 
dressed. It’s seven this very minute!” 
Henry plodded out into the hall and 
up the stairs. He got to his room and 
saw that all his things were laid out. 

Oh, it was very puzzling, he told him- 
self as he sat down on the edge of the 



bed. He started to remove one carpet 
slipper and then scowled in deep thought 
at the floor. 

Twenty minute later Lizzie knocked 
at his door. “Henry,, you’re late al- 
ready I” 

He started guiltily.. He had not even 
taken that slipper off.. If Lizzie found 

him in here She was starting to 

open the door. 

“I ought to be there this very min- 
ute,” thought Henry,, envisioning the 
lecture hall. 

Whup! 

It startled him to see them filing 
in. He stood nervously on the plat- 
form, suddenly aware of his carpet slip- 
pers and ink-stained working jacket, the 
spot on his nose and his almost black 
hand. Nervously, he tried to edge back. 

The dean was there. “Why — why Dr. 
Mudge. I didn’t see you come in.” The 
dean looked him up and down and 
frowned. “I hardly think that your 
present attire ” 

Henry visualized the clothes laid-out 
on his bed and started to cough an 
apology. 

“I— er 

IV hup! 

“What’s that, Henry?” said Lizzie. 
“My heavens, where are you?” 

“In here, Lizzie,” said Henr}' on the 
edge of his bed. 

She bustled into the room. “Why, 
you’re not dressed ! Henry Mudge. I 
don’t know what is happening to ‘your 
wits. You will keep everybody waiting 
at the University ” 

“O-h-h-h,” groaned Henry. But it 
was too late. 

“My dear fellow,” said the dean, star- 
tled. “Wliat — er — what happened to 

you? I was saying that I scarcely 
thought it proper ” 

“Please. I ” But that was as 

far as Henry got. 



104 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“I KNOW it’s my eyes,” said Lizzie. 

“Stop!” wailed Henry. “Don’t say 
anything! Please don’t say anything. 
Please, please, please don’t say any- 
thing !” 

She was suddenly all concern. “Why, 
you’re pale, Henry. Don’t you feel 
well?” 

“No— I mean yes. I’m all right. But 

don’t suggest anything. I ” But how 

could he state it? He was frightened 
half to death by the sudden possibilities 
which presented themselves to him. All 
he had to do was visualize anything and 
that scene was the scene in which he 
found himself. All anybody had to do 
was suggest something and zip! there 
he was. 

At first it had been a little difficult, 
but the gigantic beast Thought had risen 
into full power. 

“Your dress,” said Lizzie. 

But he was afraid to start disrobing. 
What if he thought 

No, he must learn to control this. 
Somehow he had missed something. If 
he could get the entire equation straight 
and its solution, he would have the full 
answer. But Thought was drunk with 
power and would not be denied. 

Henry rushed past Mrs. Doolin and 
down the steps to his study. He quickly 
sat in his chair and gripped his pen with 
determination. There was Equation C. 
Now if he could solve the rest of it he 
would be all right. He only had to sub- 
stitute certain values 

Lizzie had followed him up. “Henry, 
I think you must be going crazy. Ima- 
gine keeping all those men waiting in the 
lecture hall ” 

IV hup! 

Henry groaned and heard the dean 
say, “It was to be our pleasure this eve- 
ning that we hear from Dr. Mudge on 
the subject ” 

SomebcKly twitched at the dean’s 
sleeve. “He’s right beside you.” 

The dean looked and there was Henry, 



tweed jacket, ink stains, carpet slippers 
and all. Beads of perspiration were 
standing out on Henry’s bulging fore- 
head. 

“Go right ahead,” whispered the dean. 
“I do not approve of your attire, but 
it is too late now.” 

Henry stood up, fiery red and choked 
with stage fright. He looked down 
across the amused sea of faces and 
cleared his throat. The hall quieted 
slowly. 

“Gentlemen,” said Henry, “I have 
made a most alarming discovery. For- 
give me for so appearing before you, but 
it could not be helped. Mankind has 
long expected the existence of a state of 
mind wherein it might be possible to fol- 
low thought. However ” His lec- 

ture presence broke as he recalled his 
carpet slippers. Voice nervous and key- 
jumpy, he rushed on. “However, the 
arrival at actual transposition of person 
by thought alone was never attained, be- 
cause mankind has been searching for- 
ward instead of backward. That is, 
mankind has been looking for the ex- 
istence of nothing in the fourth dimen- 
sion instead of the existence ” He 

tried to make his mind clear. Stage 
fright was making him become involved. 
“I mean to say, the negative dimension 
is not the fourth dimension, but no di- 
mension. The existence of nothing as 
something ” 

Some- of the staid gentlemen in the 
front row were not so staid. They were 
trying not to laugh because the rest of 
the hall was silent. 

“What idiocy is that man babbling?” 
said the dean to the University president 
behind his hand. 

DR. MUDGE’S knees were shaking. 
Somebody tittered openly in the fourth 
row. 

“I mean.” plunged Mudge, des- 
perately, “that when a man imagines 
himself elsewhere, his mind seems really 
to be elsewhere for the moment. The 



THE DANGEROUS DIMENSION 



105 



Yogi takes several means of accomplish- 
ing this, evidently long practiced in the 
negative dimension. Several great think- 
ers such as Buddah have been able to 
appear bodily at a distance when they 

weren’t there but ” He swallowed 

again. “But elsewhere when they were 
there. The metaphysicist has attributed 
supernatural qualities to the phenom- 
enon known as an ‘apport’, in which peo- 
ple and such appear in one room with- 
out going through a door when they 
were in the other room ’’ 

Dear me, he thought to himself, this 
is a dreadful muddle. He could feel the 
truth behind his words, but he was too 
acutely aware of a stained jacket and 
carpet slippers and he kept propping up 
his glasses. 

“If a man should wish to be in some 
other place, it is entirely possible for 
him to imagine himself in that place and, 
diving back through the negative dimen- 
sion, to emerge out of it in that place 
with instantaneous rapidity. To imagine 
oneself ’’ 

He swallowed hard. An awful 
thought had hit him, big enough to make 
him forget his clothes and audience. A 
man could Imagine himself anyplace and 
then be in that place zip! But how 
could a man exert enough will power to 
keep from imagining himself in a posi- 
tion of imminent destruction? If he 

thought Mudge gritted his teeth. 

He must not think any such thing. He 
must not! He knew instinctively that 
there was one place he could not imagine 
himself without dying instantly before he 
could recover and retreat. He did not 
know the name of that place at the in- 
stant, would not allow himself to think 
of it 

A ribald young associate professor 
said hoarsely to a friend, loud enough 
for Dr. Mudge to hear, “He ought to 
imagine himself on Mars.’’ 

Mudge didn’t even hear the laugh 
which started to greet that sally. 

Whup! 



He examined the sandy wastes 
which stretched limitlessly to all the 
clear horizons. Air whooshed out of his 
lungs and he gasped painfully. Be- 
wildered, he took a few steps and the 
sand got into his carpet slippers. A- 
thin, cold wind cut through the tweed 
jacket and rustled his tie. 

“Oh, dear,’’ thought Mudge. “Now 
I’ve done it!’’ 

A high, whining sound filled the sky 
and he glanced up to see a pear-shaped 
ship streaking flame across the sky. It 
was gone almost before it had started. 

Dr. Mudge felt very much alone. He 
had no faith in his mental behavior now. 
It might fail him. He might never get 
away. He might imagine himself in an 
emperor’s palace with sentries 

Whup ! 

THE DIAMOND floor was hard on 
his eyes and lights blazed all around him. 
A golden throne reared before him and 
on top of it sat a small man with a very 
large head, swathed in material which 
glowed all of itself. 

Mudge couldn’t understand a word 
that was being said because no words 
were being said, and yet they all hit his 
brain in a bewildering disarray. 

Instantly he guessed what was hap- 
pening. As a man’s intention can be 
telepathed to a dog, these superior be- 
ings battered him mentally as he had 
no brain wave selectivity. He had 
guessed the human mind would so 
evolve, and he was pleased for an instant 
to find he had been right. But not for 
long. 

He began to feel sick in the midst of 
this bombardment. All eyes were upon 
him in frozen surprise. 

The emperor shouted and pointed a 
small wand. Two guards leaped up and 
fastened themselves upon Mudge. He 
knew vaguely that they thought he was 
an inferior being — something like a 
chimpanzee, or maybe a gorilla, and, in- 



106 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



fleed, so he was on their scale of evolu- 
tion. 

The ruler shouted again and the 
guards breathed hard and looked angrily 
at Mudge. Another man came sprinting 
over the diamond floor, a flare-barreled 
gun gripped in his hand. 

Mudge Ijegan to struggle. He knocked 
the guards aside with surprising ease. 

Wildly he turned about, seeking a way 
out, too confused by light, thought 
waves and sound to think clearly and 
remember. 

The man with the lethal-looking 
weapon braced his feet and leveled the 
muzzle at Mudge’s chest. He was go- 
ing to shoot and Mudge knew that he 
faced a death-dealing ray. He was get- 
ting no more consideration than a mad 
ape like that one in the Central Park 

Zoo The guard was squeezing the 

trigger 

IV hup! 

Weakly Dr. Mudge leaned on the rail- 
ing of the Central Park Zoo in New 
York. He took out his handkerchief 
and dabbed at his forehead. Dully he 
gazed up, knowing he would see an 
orangutan in the cage. It was late, and 
the beast slumbered in his covered hut. 
Mudge could only see a tuft of fur. 

“Thanks,” he whispered. 

The night air was soothing. He took 
a deep, refreshing breath. He was ex- 
hausted with all the cross-currents which 
had battered his poor, human mind, and 
the thin air of Mars. 

He moved slowly along the rail. 
There was a sign there which said, “Go- 
rilla. Brought from the Mountains of 
the Moon by Martin ” 

IVhup! 

“O-h-h-h,” groaned Mudge pitifully 
as he sank down on a rock in the freezing 
night. “This can’t keep up. I would 
no more than start to eat when some- 
thing would yank me away. I’d starve. 
And sooner or later I’ll think of a very 



dangerous place and that will be the 
end of me before I can escape. There’s 
one place in particular 

“NO!” he screamed into the African 
night. 

The thought had not formed. One 
place he must never, never think about. 
NEVER ! 

From this high peak, he could sec all 
Africa spread before him. Glowing far 
off in the brilliant moonlight was Lake 
Tanganyika. 

Mudge was a little pleased with him- 
self just the same. Tlie people back at 
the lecture 

Whup! 

“I AM SORRY and very puzzled,” 
the dean was saying, watch in hand. 
“Why Dr. Mudge should see fit to use 
a magician’s tricks, to appear in .such 
strange attire and generally disport him- 
self ” 

“I can’t help it!” wailed Mudge at 
his side. 

The dean almost jumped out of his 
shoes. He was annoyed to be startled 
out of his dignity, and he scowled 
harshly at Mudge. “Doctor, I advise 
you strongly that such conduct will no 
longer be tolerated. If you are trying 
to prove anything by this, an explana- 
tion will be most welcome. The subject 
is philosophy and not Houdinr’s vanish- 
ing tricks.” 

“O-h-h-h,” moaned IMudge, “don’t 
say anything. Please don’t say anything 
more. Just keep quiet. I mean,” he 
said hastily, “I mean, don’t say any- 
thing else. Please !” 

The young man who had suggested 
Mars was not quite so sure of himself, 
but the dean’s handy ex])lanation of 
magic without paraphernalia restored his 
buoyancy. 

“It was just ” began Mudge. “No, 

I can’t say where I was or I’ll go back, 
and I won’t go back. This is very ter- 
rifying to me, gentlemen. There is one 
certain place I must not think about. 



THE DANGEROUS DIMENSION 



107 



The mind is an unruly thing. It seems 
to have no great love for the material 
body as it willfully, so it seems, insists 
in this great emergency on playing me 
tricks ” 

“Dr. Mudge,” said the dean, sternly. 
“I know not what you mean by all this 
cheap pretension to impossibilities ” 

“Oh, no,” cried Mudge. “I am pre- 
tending nothing. If I could only stop 
this I would be a very happy man ! It is 
terribly hard on the nerves. Out of 
Spinoza I wandered into Force equa- 
tions, and at two today I caught a glim- 
mer of truth in the fact that there was a 
negative dimension — a dimension which 
had no dimensions. I know for certain 
that mind is capable of anything.” 

“It certainly is,” said the dean. “Even 
chicanery.” 

“No, no,” begged Mudge, pushing his 
glasses high on his forehead and fishing 

in his pockets. “In my notes ” He 

looked squarely at the dean. “Here ! I 
have proof of where I have been, sir.” 
He stooped over and took off a carpet 
slipper. He turned it upside down on 
the lecture table and a peculiar, glowing 
sand streamed out. 

“That is Martian sand,” said Mudge. 

“Bosh!” cried the dean. He turned 
to the audience. “Gentlemen, I wish you 
to excuse this display. Dr. Mudge has 
not been well, and his mind seems to be 
unbalanced. A few hours’ rest ” 

“I’ll show you my notes,” said Mudge, 
pleading. “I'll show you the equation. 
I left them home in my study ” 

Whup! 

Lizzie Doolin was muttering to her- 
self as she picked up the papers from the 
floor and stacked them. The professor 
was certainly a madman this evening. 

Poor little man She was turning 

and she almost fainted. 

Dr. Mudge was sitting in his chair 
getting his notes together. 

“Doctor!” cried Lizzie. “What are 
you doing there? How did you get in 



the house? The doors are all locked 
and Oh-h-h-h-h, it’s my eyes.. Doc- 

tor, you know very well that you should 

be at that lecture ” She started at 

him. 

He barely had time to cram the pa- 
pers in his pocket. 

Whup! 

THE DEAN was fuming. “Such 

tricks are known Oh, there you 

are! Doctor, I am getting very sick of 
this. We are too well versed in what 
can be done by trickery to be at all star- 
tled by these comings and goings of 
yours.” 

“It’s not a trick!” stated Mudge. 
“Look, I have my notes. I ” 

“And I suppose you’ve brought back 
some vacuum from the Moon this ” 

Whup! 

It was so cold that Mudge was in- 
stantly blue all over. He could feel him- 
self starting to blow up as the internal 
pressure fought for release., His lungs 
began to collapse, but his mind raced, 
torn between two thoughts. 

Here he was on the Moon. Here he 
was, the first man ever to be on the 
Moon ! 

And all the great volcanoes reared 
chilly before him, and an empty Sea of 
Dreams fell away behind him. Barren 
rock was harsh beneath his feet and his 
weight seemed nothing 

All in an instant he glimpsed it be- 
cause he knew that he would be dead in 
another second, exploded like a penny 
balloon. He visualized the thing best 
known to him — his studio. 

Whup! 

Lizzie was going out the door when 
she heard the chair creak. She forgot 
about the necessity for aspirin as she 
faced about. 

Mudge was in again. 

“Doctor,” stormed Lizzie, an Amazon 
of fury, “if you don’t stop that, I don’t 



108 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



know what will happen to me ! Here a 
minute, gone again, here and gone, here 
and gone! What is the world coming 
to 1 It is not my ■eyes. It can’t be my 
eyes. I felt over the whole room for 
you and not so much as a hair of your 
head was here. What kind of heathen 
magic have you been stirring up ? 
You’ve sold your soul ” 

“STOP !’’ screamed Mudge. He sank 
back, panting. That had been close. 
But then, that had not been as close as 
that other THING which he dared not 
envision. He chopped the thought off 
and started back on another. 

“Maybe,” said Mudge, thoughtfully, 

“maybe there isn’t Oh, I’ve got the 

test right here. Can I throw myself 
back and forth between life and death ?” 

He had said the word. 

“Death,” he said again, more dis- 
tinctly. 

And still nothing occurred. He 
breathed easier. He could not go back 
and forth through Time, as he had no 
disconnection with the Time stream. He 
could whisk himself about the universe 
at will — or against his will — but he was 
still carrying on in the same hours and 
minutes. It had been dark in Africa, 
almost morning in P 

“NO I” he yelled. 

Lizzie jumped a foot and stared to 
see if Mudge was still in his chair. 

“Whatever are you up to ?” demanded 
Lizzie, angrily. “You frighten a body 
out of her wits I” 

“Something awful is going on,” said 
Mudge, darkly. “I tried to tell you be- 
fore dinner, but you wouldn’t listen. I 
can imagine I am some place and then be 
in that som^lace. This very instant I 
could imagine something and zip! I’d 
be someplace else without walking 
through doors or anything.” 

LIZZIE almost broke forth anew. But 
it awed her, a little. She had seen Mudge 
appear and disappeared so often this eve- 



ning that this was the only explanation 
which she could fit. 

Mudge looked tired. “But I’m afraid, 
Lizzie. I’m terribly afraid. If I don’t 
watch myself, I might imagine I was in 
some horrible place such as 

“NO !” shouted Mudge. 

“I might imagine I was some place 
where I 

“NO !” he yelled again. 

Those shouts were like bullets to Liz- 
zie Doolin. But she was still awed — a 
little. 

Mudge held his head in his hands. 
“And I’m in trouble. The dean will 
not believe what is happening to me. He 
calls me a cheat 

“NO !” he cried. 

“What do you keep yelling for ?” com- 
plained Lizzie. 

“So I won’t go sailing off. If I can 
catch a thought before it forms I can 
stay put.” He groaned and lowered his 
head into his hands. “But I am not 
believed. They think me a cheat. Oh, 
Lizzie, I’ll lose my professorship. We’ll 
starve I” 

She was touched and advanced slowly 
to touch his shoulder, “Never you mind 
what they say about you. I’ll beat their 
heads in, Henry, that I will.” 

He glanced up in astonishment at her. 
She had never shown any feeling for him 
in all these ten years. She had bullied 
him and driven him and terrified him 
for years 

She was conscious of her tenderness 
and brushed it away on the instant. “But 
don’t go jumping off like that again! 
Drive over to the University in your 
car like a decent man should.” 

“Yes, Lizzie.” 

He got up and walked toward the 
door. Her jaw was set again. 

“Mind what I tell you,” she snapped. 
“Your car, now ! And nothing fancy !” 

“Yes, Lizzie. They’re waiting. . . .” 
He didn’t, couldn’t stop that thought 
and the hall was clearly envisioned and 
there he was, whup. 



THE DANGEROUS DIMENSION 



109 



The dean had his hands on both hips 
as he saw that Mudge was here again. 
The dean wagged his head from side to 
side and was very angry, almost speech- 
less. Tlie audience tittered. 

“Have you no respect?” cried the 
dean. “How dare you do such things 
when I am talking to you. I was say- 
ing that the next time you’ll probably 
say ” 

“SHUT UP!” shouted Mudge in 
desperation. He was still cold from his 
trip to the Moon. 

The dean recoiled. Mudge was a very 
mild little fellow, with never anything 
but groveling respect for everybody. And 
these words from him 

“I’m sorry,” said Mudge. “You 
mustn’t say things or you’ll send me 
off somewhere again. Now don’t speak.” 

“Mudge, you can be assured that this 
performance this evening will terminate 
your ” 

Mudge was desperate. “Don’t. You 
might say something.” 

The audience was delighted and 
laughter rolled through the hall. Mudge 
had not realized how his remark would 
sound. 

The dean had never been anything but 
overbearing and now, with his dignity 
flouted, he turned white. He stepped 
stiffly to the president of the University 
and said a few words in a low voice. 
Grimly the president nodded. 

“Here and now,” said the dean, step- 
ping back, “I am requesting your resig- 
nation, Mudge. This Houdini buf- 
foonery ” 

“Wait,” pleaded Mudge, hauling his 
notes from his pocket. “First look at 
these and maybe you will see ” 

“I care to look at nothing,” stated the 
dean frostily. “You are a disgrace. To 
employ common stage magic ” 

“Look,” pleaded Mudge, putting the 
papers on the lecture stand. “Just give 
me one minute. I am beside myself. I 
don't mean what I say. But there is one 
think I must not think about — one thing 



I can’t think to think about but which I 
Look. Here, see?” 

The dean scowled at the sheets of 
scribbled figures and symbols. Mudge 
talked to him in a low voice, growing 
more and more excited. 

The dean was still austere. 

“And there,” said Mudge, “right there 
is Equation C. Read it.” 

THE DEAN thought Mudge might 
as well be humored as long as he would 
be leaving in the morning for good. He 
adjusted his glasses and looked at 
Mudge’s reports. His glance fastened 
on Equation C. 

The dean was startled. He stood up 
straight, his logical mind turning over 
at an amazing pace. “That’s very 
strange,” said the dean, bewildered. “My 
head feels ” 

“Oh, what have I done?” cried 
Mudge, too late. 

The assistant professor in the front 
row, a man of little wit but many jokes, 
chortled, “I suppose he will go to Mars 
now.” 

Whup ! 

Mudge was almost in control by now. 
He knew that a part of Equation C was 
missing which would make it completely 
workable and useable at all times with- 
out any danger. And he also knew that 
being here on this sandy plain was not 
very dangerous unless one happened to 
think 

“NO!” he screamed into the Martian 
night. 

It was easy. He was even used to 
Martian air now. All he had to do was 
visualize the classroom 

Whup! 

Mudge took off his glasses and wiped 
them. Then he bent over and emptied 
the sand from his slippers. The hall be- 
fore him was silent as death and men 
were staring in disbelief at the little man 
on the platform. 



110 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Mudge replaced the slipper. He took 
up a pencil and bent eagerly over his 
notes. He had to work this thing out 
before he imagined 

“NO!” he roared. 

It would be awful if he dreamed it. 
Dreaming he would have no real control 
and things would happen to him. 

The president rose cautiously and 
tapped Mudge’s shoulder. “W-w-w-w- 
where is the dean ?” 

Mudge glanced around. True enough, 
the dean was not there. Mudge chewed 
at the end of his pencil in amazed con- 
templation. 

“Do you mean,” ventured the presi- 
dent, “that that statement about ” 

“SHUT UP!” cried Mudge. “The 
dean may find out how to get back unless 

he thinks of something he ” He 

swallowed hard. 

“Dr. Mudge, I resent such a tone,” 
began the president. 

“I am sorry,” said Mudge, “but you 
might have said it, and the next time I 
might fall in a Martian canal ” 

IF hup! 

HE W.\S strangling as he fought 
through the depths. He broke the sur- 
face like a porpoise and swam as hard 
as he could, terror surging within him 
as these dark waters lapped over him. 

Ahead he could see a houseboat with 
a beautiful lady sitting at the rail. He 
swam breast stroke, raising himself up 
to shout for help. The cold suddenness 
of the accident had dulled his brain and 
he could not know what monsters lurked 
in these Martian depths. 

The woman was strangely like an 
Earth-woman for all that. Perhaps 
there were colonies of these people much 
as there were colonies of chimpanzees on 
Earth. But the houseboat was silvery 
and the woman dressed in luminous 
cloth. 

Strong hands yanked Mudge from the 
water and he stood blowing upon the 
deck, water forming about his feet in a 



pool. The woman was staring at him. 
She was a beautiful thing, and Mudge’s 
heart beat swiftly. She spoke in sibilant 
tones. 

He bowed to her. “No, I haven’t time 
for a visit or tea or anything,” said 
Mudge. “I am sorry, but I am busy at 

a lect No ! — I am busy on Ea 

NO! I am busy.” 

Oddly enough he knew that he could 
not speak her language, and yet he un- 
derstood her perfectly as she placed her 
hand on his arm. It must be more 
telepathy, lie thought. 

“Yes, it is telepathy,” said her mind. 
“Of course. But I am astonished to see 
you. For years — ever since the great 
purge — no humans of our breed have 
been here. Alone with these yellow men 
as servants I am safe enough. My 
parole was given because of certain fa- 



“Excuse me,” said Mudge. “I have 
an appointment. Don’t be alarmed if I 
vanish. I’ll be back someday.” He 
looked around to fix the spot in his mind, 
feeling devilish for an instant. 

He bowed to her. “I must leave ” 

“But you’ll take cold,” she said, pick- 
ing up a shawl of glowing material and 
throwing it about his shoulders. 

“Thank you,” said Mudge, “and now 
I really must go.” 

Again he bowed, and envisioned the 
classroom deliberately this time. 

IV hup! 

The water dripped to the lecture 
platform and Mudge was really getting 
cold by now. He hauled the shawl more 
tightly about his arms and was aware 
of protruding eyes all through the hall. 

The water dripped and dripped, and 
Mudge shivered again. He sneezed. It 
would be good 

“NO!” he shouted and everybody in 
the hall almost jumped out of their 
chairs. 

Mudge turned to the president, “You 
see what you did?” he said plaintively. 



THE DANGEROUS DIMENSION 



111 



The president was cowed. But he 
picked up in a moment. “Did — did you 
see the dean ?” 

“No,” said Mudge. The warm room 
was drying his clothes rapidly, and he 
rolled up his sleeve so that he wouldn’t 
blot the paper. Feverishly, he began to 
evolve Equation D. 

He almost knew why he was working 
so fast. He was wholly oblivious of the 
audience. Very well he knew that his 
life depended upon his solving Equa- 
tion D and thus putting the negative di- 
mension wholly in his control. His pen- 
cil flew. 

The thought Ijegan to seep into his 
mind in spite of all he could do. 

“NO!” he yelled. 

A’gain pedple jumped. 

There was a grunt at his elbow and 
there stood the dean. He had sand in 
his gray hair and he looked mussed up. 

“So you got back,” said Mudge. 

“It — it was terrible,” moaned the dean 
in a broken voice. “The ” 

“Don’t say it,” said Mudge. 

• “Doctor,” said the dean, “I apologize 
for all I said to you.” He faced the 
crowd. “I can verify amply everything 
that has happened here tonight. Dr. 
Mudge is absolutely correct” — he paused 
to swab his face and spit sand out of his 
teeth — “about the negative dimension. I 
have the uneasy feeling, however, that it 
is a very dangerous dimension. A man 
might ” 

“Stop,” said Mudge, loudly. 

HE WAS WORKING at a terrific 
pace now, and the paper shot off the 
stand to the floor as he swept it aside. 
He grabbed a new sheet. 

He knew he was working against 
death. Knew it with all his heart. That 
thought would not long be stayed. At 
any minute he might find out where he 
was that he dared never go 

Equation D was suddenly before him. 
He copied it with a weary sigh and 



handed it to the dean. “Read that be- 
fore you get any ideas,” said Mudge. 

The dean read it. 

“Mars,” said Mudge. 

Nothing happened. 

The dean began to breathe more 
easily. 

“Moon,” said Mudge. 

And still nothing happened. 

Mudge faced the audience. “Gentle- 
men, I regret the excitement here to- 
night. It has quite exhausted me. I 
can either give you Equation C and D 



“No,” said the dean. 

“No!” chorused the crowd. 

“I’m frightened of it,” said the dean. 
“I could never, never, never prevail upon 
myself to use it under any circumstances 
less than a falling building. Destroy 
it.” 

Mudge looked around and everybody 
nodded. 

“I know this,” said Mudge, “but I 
will never write it again.” And so say- 
ing, he tore it up into little bits, his wet 
coat making it possible for him to wad 
the scraps to nothingness, never again to 
be read by mortal man. 

“Gentlemen,” said Mudge, “I am 
chilly. And so if you will excuse me, I 
will envision my study and ” 

Whup! 

Lizzie was crying. Her big shoul- 
ders shook as she hunched over in the 
doctor’s chair. “Oh, I just know some- 
thing will happen to him. Something 
awful,” said Lizzie. “Poor little man.” 

“I am not a poor little man,” said 
Mudge. 

She gasped as she stared up at him. 

“My chair, please,” said Mudge. 

She started to her feet. “Why, Henry 
Mudge, you are soaking wet ! What do 
you mean ?” 

He cut her short. “I don’t mean any- 
thing by it except that I fell in a Mar- 
tian canal, Lizzie. Now be quick and 



112 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



get me some dry clothes and a drink of 
something.” 

She hesitated. “You know you don’t 
drink,” she snapped — for a test. 

“I don’t drink because I knew you 
didn’t like it. Bring me some of that 
medicinal whiskey, Lizzie. Tomor- 
row ni make it a point to get some good 
Scotch.” 

“Henry!” 

“Don’t talk like that,” said Henry 
Mudge commandingly. “I am warning 
you that you had better be pretty good 
from now on.” 

“Henry,” said Lizzie. 

“Stop that,” he said. “I won’t have it. 
I refuse to be bullied in my own home, 
I tell you. And unless you are very, 
very good I am liable to vanish like 
that and stay ” 

“Don’t,” she begged. “Don’t do that, 
Henry. Please don’t do that. Any- 
thing you say, Henry. Anything. But 
don’t pop off like that anymore.” 

HENRY BEAMED upon her. 
“That’s better. Now go get me some 
clothes and a drink. And be quick about 
it.” 



“Yes, Henry,” she said meekly. But 
even so she did not feel badly about it. 
In fact, she felt very good. She whisked 
herself upstairs and trotted down again 
in a moment. 

She placed the whiskey and water be- 
side his hand. 

Henry dug up a forbidden cigar. She 
did not protest. 

“Get me a light,” said Henry. 

She got him a light. “If you want 
anything, dear, just call.” 

“That I will, Lizzie,” said Henry 
Mudge. 

He put his feet upon the desk, feeling 
wicked about it, but enjoying it just the 
same. His clothes were almost dry. 

He sank back, puffing his cigar, and 
then took a sip of the drink. He chuckled 
to hfmself. 

His mind had quieted down. He 
grinned at the upset owl. The thought 
which had almost hit him before came 
to him now. It jarred him for an in- 
stant, even made him sweat. But he 
shook it off and was very brave. 

“Sun,” said Henry Mudge, coolly tak- 
ing another drink. 



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I 



GIANT STARS 

BV 

Arthur McCann 



A discussion of the newly-measured Epsilon 
Aurigae that goes beyond the surface facts. Is 
it the largest star known — and what is a star? 



T he recently measured (not re- 
cently discovered, however) 
Companion of Epsilon Aurigae 
brings up an old astronomical problem 
more sharply than ever before, because 
it is more on the borderline than any 
other star ever discovered. When is a 
star not a star but — something else? 

In 1937 the greatest stars known were, 
in order : 

Star Diameter la milee 

Antares 400,(X)0,0()0 

Alpha Herculis 350,000,000 

Beta Pegasi 350,000,000 

Mira Ceti . 200,000,000 

Betelgeux 200,000,000 

Then the Companion of Epsilon 
Aurigae was measured. It appears to 
be approximately 3,000,000,000 miles in 
diameter. That makes it nearly ten 
times greater in diameter than the other 
giant stars. But the more important 
point is that it has, in consequence, 
nearly 100 times the surface area. 

That immensity is totally beyond con- 
ception. The Sun we know is too vast 
for any honest mental comprehension, 
so astronomers cease entirely any use- 
less efforts to actually understand it, and 
use it merely as a unit. The Compan- 
ion of Epsilon Aurigae, then, is 3100 
times as great in diameter as our Sun. 

Considerable newspaper and popular 
material has appeared on that giant star 
already ; we are not interested at present 
in the star itself, but only as it repre- 



sents a new member of a spectacular class 
— the giant suns. Antares, Mira, Betel- 
geux — they’ve been the familiar mem- 
bers of the class. Notice that they rep- 
resent no great differences in size, those 
greatest hitherto-known suns. The Sun 
we know is about one million miles in 
diameter. There is, however, a steady 
series of stars that are known, progress- 
ing from tiny things 1/ 100th the Sun’s 
size on in steady increase to these fa- 
miliar giants 200 to 400 million miles 
in diameter. -(Actually, Epsilon Aurigae 
itself, the main star of the binauy to 
which the new giant is a companion, is 
120,000,000 miles in diameter — ^a true 
giant in its own right, dwarfed only by 
the new discovery.) 

The important thing is this ; there is a 
steady, traceable curve oj increasing sizes 
up to Antares. Then, abruptly, we 
jump to a star immensely, spectacularly 
bigger — the new Companion. 

No star closely approaching it in size 
has ever before been discovered. 

No star hitherto discovered wais spec- 
tacularly out of line with other known 
stellar sizes. 

The Companion, then, is unique, 
unique at least in our knowledge. Why ? 

ANTAREIS is, technically, a Spectral 
Type cMO. The M-type designation 
means that it is a red, comparatively cool 
star with a surface temperature quite 
low for stars — about 3000° C., or slightly 



114 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



hotter than an incandescent tungsten 
light filament. The c-designation is the 
hall-mark of the super-giant sun. “Su- 
per-giant” in this sense refers not to the . 
bulk, but the energy-output. Antares is 
an enormously brilliant sun, more than 
10.000 times as luminous as our Sun. 
Any star carrying that “c” in its desig- 
nation is a super-giant and about 10,000 
^ more times brighter than Sol, so far 
as energy-output goes. 

The “0” of “MO” in the designation 
means that Antares is a perfectly t>T)i- 
cal Type M. If it were a little cooler 
than average for M-type suns, it would 
be Ml, or M2. Still cooler, and it might 
have been an M8 star. 

All of those hitherto-known giants 
were type cM suns. Anything that huge 
is bound to be a c-type star; that enor- 
mous surface area, if it is hot enough 
to be luminous, is bound to pour out 
stupendous floods of energy. All those 
stars are extremely tenuous — ^no more 
than a higli-grade vacuum from an 
Earthly viewpoint. Their immense 
bulks are made up almost entirely of an 
exceedingly tenuous atmosphere sur- 
rounding a core of immensely dense and 
furiously active stellar material. That 
core is virulently, coruscantly radiant. 
All stars, whatever the surface appear- 
ance may be, must contain at the heart 
an esscntially-similar mechanism of 
heat-shattered atoms under unendurable 
pressure where the atomic energy may 
be released. In the type-M stars, that 
core is buried under vast layers of ot)- 
scuring, hindering, throttling atmos- 
phere that reduces the energy and dilutes 
it to a red color. Even the energy of 
ten thousand Sols, released deep in a 
400,000,000-mile gas-cloud, would serve 
only to warm it to a reddish-white glow. 

It is understandable, then, that those 
known giant-size stars have been red, 
and suj>er-giant class cM suns. They 
had to be to be that large and still be 
visible. 

Antares, Mira, Betelgeux were all 



measured by direct optical means. The 
stellar interferometer, one of the innu- 
merable attachments that may be applied 
to a large telescope, served to special- 
ize the 100" Mt. Wilson telescope into 
a trick optical instrument that did not 
form clear images of the stars, but 
blurry, concentric circles of interference 
patterns. By the number of blur-rings 
and the optical constants of the instru- 
ment, it was possible to calculate the 
actual diameter, when the distance to 
that sun was calculated. 

Three things were necessary ; that the 
star observed give visible light enough 
to operate the interferometer. That it 
be reasonably (relative to interstellar 
distances) near. And that the star origi- 
nally had been detected, or, rather, no- 
ticed. 

The Companion of Epsilon Aurigae 
did not julfUl any owe oj these three con- 
ditions. It was too dim to be detected. 
Epsilon Aurigas, its companion, is a 
super-giant sun in its own right, a 
Class cF8 star somewhat hotter than our 
own Sun, and 120 times as large. That 
was sufficiently brilliant — enormously so 
— that even at the immense distance 
from us that it now stands it was defi- 
nitely noticeable. It is a third-magni- 
tude star, and the naked eye can detect 
a sixth-magnitude sun. We did not 
notice the Companion at all. It was 
much too dim. 

Therefore, it was too dim to operate 
the stellar interferometer. Had we 
somehow discovered it, we could not 
have measured it even then. 

Finally, it is immensely distant. Were 
it bright — even if it gave enough light 
— the distance is too great for the in- 
terferometer to operate with any satis- 
factory accuracy. 

THEN, by all that’s good and holy, 
we had no right to find out about that 
star at all. How did they ? By a series 
of freak coincidences that is fantasti- 
cally improbable. 



GIANT STARS 



ns 





Tvro possible types of eclipse involving Epsilon Aurigae and its giant Companion, 
The double-ended arrow represents the known distance the stars move during the 
period of the eclipse. (Naturally, both starts move in orbits; only that of the Com- 
panion is indicated for simplicity.) The central eclipse, as at left, is improbable, fot 
Epsilon remains visible, though dimmed, throughout. ..The stellar core would totally 
obscure it. The right-hand cut represents the actual state. Notice that, in conse- 
quence, the Companion must be larger than the central eclipse would require. The 
cuts are not strictly proportional. Taking the right-hand Companion as in scale. 
Epsilon Aurigae on the same scale should be .05 inches in diameter. The Sun on 
that scale would be .0004 inches in diameter. 



First, being so immensely distant, to 
attract attention, a companion sun. Epsi- 
lon Aurigae itself, was provided. It was 
no mean provision, for, over 100,000,0(X) 
miles in diameter (enough to fill the 
Solar System out beyond Earth’s orbit), 
it is so furiously energetic in its radia- 
tion that all the stupendous surface is 
kept at a temperature hotter than our 
own Sun’s “little” surface maintains. 

Second, since we can’t see the Com- 
panion, we have to be able to detect it 
against a lighted background. The only 
way that would be possible would be 
to have the invisible star move across 
the face of a visible star — an eclipsing 
binary. Epsilon Aurigae system is. 

But that means that the plane of the 
orbits of this system must lie in exactly 
such a position that Earth, billions of 
millions of miles distant, hundreds of 
light years aw'ay, shall lie precisely in the 
same plane. If we do not see that sys- 
tem exactly edge on, we won’t see the 
eclipse. We’ll see over or under the 
obscuring dark star. The range of per- 
missible variation, if we are to see that 
eclipse, is, obviously, small. 

AST— 8 



Those conditions were fulfilled. Ep- 
silon’s Companion w'as detected because 
the brilliant cF8 star varied in apparent 
brilliance in a regular manner. Plotting 
the apparent luminosity against time 
showed a light-curve with a period of 
27 years, and of such a character as to 
prove that the variation was caused by 
an unseen Companion. 

Since the eclipses did occur, that 
proved that Epsilon Aurigje was, at cer- 
tain times, moving directly away from 
Earth, and, at the opposite end of its 
orbit, directly toward Earth. The spec- 
troscope is ideally adapted to measuring 
velocities toward and away from it in 
the line of sight. That gave us the or- 
bital velocity and the period of the orbit. 
It was not too difficult to work out the 
complete orbit data for the twin stars. 

Then, knowing how fast the stars 
moved round each other, the length of 
the eclipse gave the distance Epsilon had 
to move to pass completely past the un- 
seen Companion. That gave us a chord 
of the new star’s bulk. Not necessarily, 
however, a diameter. 

Calculation showed which it was. In 



116 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



the two cuts, if the visible star passes 
behind the Companion through a diam- 
eter, the distance we have determined 
represents the actual maximum dimen- 
sion of the new star. If it is a chord, 
that means the Companion is much 
larger. Every Star must have an im- 
mensely dense core to generate its atomic 
power. No star could shine through the 
core of another — and Epsilon Aurigse 
did shine through. It was only par- 
tially, not totally, obscured. Therefore 
the distance was a chord. 

The calculations required to show 
what chord it was — whether a mere graze 
on a super-super-super-giant or a com- 
paratively deep slice of a super-super- 
giant — were no pleasure. They were 
made, and the results interpreted. They 
showed the Companion to be something 
like this: 

It is a star about 3,000,000,000 miles 
in diameter, with a surface temperature 
of 850° C. (That would just about melt 
aluminum. It is a temperature consid- 
erably lower than that of a gas flame, 
about that of an electric toaster, in fact. ) 
It is about the lowest stellar surface- 
temperature on record. Naturally, it 
would be almost impossible to detect any 
such cool star, and it would, despite its 
enormous total energy-output, be unno- 
ticed against the Milky Way. It has a 
mass about 21 times that of Sol — and is 
the lesser of the two stars of Epsilon 
Aurigse system. The main star is 25 
times as massive as Sol. 

But it, is a c-type super-giant. Down 
there, deep in the heart of that stu- 
pendous, tenuous atmosphere is one of 
those furiously incandescent 10,000-sun- 
power super-giant stellar cores function- 
ing as wildly as in any other super- 
giant c-type star.* 

♦ The c-type super-giants all have an absolute 
xnagnitude of about -5. Mauy exceed that 
very considerably (S Doradi has an absolute 
magnitude approaching —10.) The average 
Nova at the peak of its wild explosion reaches 
a temporary absolute magnitude of about -5 
— equal only to the day-after-day. millennium- 
after-millennium output of a “normal” c-type 
super-giant. 



One of the most important things the 
Epsilon Aurigae system has taught us 
lies in this: the main star is diminished 
in intensity when it has to shine through 
the outer layers of the Companion’s stu- 
pendous atmosphere, but it remains visi- 
ble. Since the Companion is a c-type 
super-giant, it must have one of those 
enormously radiant cores buried there 
somewhere — but we can not see that 
core. The atmosphere of cold, non- 
radiant gas obscures it, but does not cut 
off entirely the light of Epsilon. It 
merely diniinshes its apparent intensity. 

NOW ; why haven’t we detected stars 
like the Companion before, elsewhere in 
space ? 

First, stars so huge must be rare, 
naturally. Super-giant suns are rare. 
Those stupendously bulky super-giants 
are rarities among rare stars. 

Then, suppose there were .another 
Epsilon Aurigse Companion. Charac- 
teristically, the hot nucleus is shielded, 
its blue-white luminosity diluted in 
warming that immense atmosphere to a 
mere dull glow, an electric toaster 
3,000,000,000 miles across. Between the 
dull-red of Antares and the toaster-glow 
of the Companion, we lost track. We 
couldn’t find them. 

It may well be that the Companion 
will be unique for ages to come, an ac- 
cidentally discovered rare type that was 
discovered by a yet-rarer freak of hap- 
penstance. An eclipsing binary, both 
components of which were c-type super- 
giants, one of which was a gas-ball of 
the new, Aurigae-type super-red-giant. 

But here enters the astronomer’s prob- 
lem, mentioned in the first paragraphs. 
When is a star a star — and when is it 
that something else? 

Suppose we expanded that already- 
expanded Aurigae-type of super-giant. 
The core we cannot expand. That must 
remain dense, generating the frightful 
pressures and stupendous temperatures 
that release atomic power. But we can 



GIANT STARS 



117 



expand the gaseous envelope even more. 
We can put it in rotation about the star 
— stars usually rotate anyway — so that 
gravity has even less effect on it. Lord 
knows, with only 21 times Sol’s mass, 
that star must have a pretty feeble grip 
by the time its atmosphere gets even 
3,000,0(X),(XX3 miles out. We’ll put our 
imaginary star’s atmosphere out to 100 
times as great a distance — out 300,000,- 
000,000 miles. 

We’re getting pretty far out, and 
pretty tenuous now. Maybe we would 
do better with about twice as much mass, 
distributing it in that super-super at- 
mosphere. Three hundred billion miles 
©f it ! It’s unstable as blazes. It can’t 
rotate really uniformly, because of or- 
bital-period differences. But if we di- 
vide it into layers and use light- pressure 
to help, we may get somewhere. For 
instance, we can help matters a little by 
putting hydrogen and calcium, which are 
easily affected by light pressure, well out, 
in an orbit slower than gravity would 
normally allow. 

But now — well, the Companion in 
Aurigae, you remember, didn’t shut off 
all the light of Epsilon. The outer at- 
mosphere was too tenuous ; it just grayed 
it, like a dull, gray haze. Our central 
core that we could not disperse, in this 
imaginary star, is going to show through 
our final structure I fear. ■ Looking at 
it from a distance we’ll probably see an 



intensely hot core — perhaps a type-cO 
core, for instance, the hottest super-giant 
type known. The outer atmosphere 
we’ve diluted so much that it shows no 
real heat, now, but merely the effects of 
re-radiated light picked up from that 
inner core. The layers of different light- 
supported atoms will, from a great dis- 
tance, appear as rings of light, rather 
than layers. 

In a telescope, it would look just like 
a “planetary nebula’’ in fact, this in- 
comparably vast star of ours. Like them 
— like the observed Ring Nebula in 
Lyra, for instance — it would, alone of 
stars, be vast enough to show as an 
actual circular object in a telescope here 
on Earth. 

That would be a star incomparably 
vaster even than the Companion of Ep- 
silon Aurigae. fieside it, Mira Ceti, 
Betelgeux, the greatest of the red giants, 
would shrink to — the pinpoints they ap- 
pear. 

But not, perhaps, Antares. .\ntares, 
by infra-red light photography, shows 
evidences of a ring-nebula about it. An- 
tares may, in fact, be a sort half-way 
step between the Companion and the — 
well, Hollywoodian super-collossal-gi- 
ants of the planetary nebula order. 

But, asks the astronomer, when is a 
star a star, and when is it something 
else — a planetary nebula 100,000,000,000 
miles in diameter? 



Introducing — 

Chief Engineer Josh McNab, 
of the Spaceship Arachne! 

A good Scots engineer finds his ship a 

“HELL SHIP” 



In the August Astounding 



The 



Legion of Time 

By 

Jac k Williamson 



Synopsis: Parts I and II. 
EADLY antagonists, two women 
haunted Dennis Lanning’s life. 
He was eighteen, in 1927, when 
Lethonee first appeared to hint in the 
apartment at Harvard that he shared 
with three others: Wil McLan, the 

mathematician; Lao Meng Shan, the 
Chinese engineer; and Barry Halloran, 
all-American tackle and his dearest 
friend. 

Tragic zvith dread, and beautiful, 
Lethonee’s intangible image came to him 
alone, holding the great jezvel of time 
that she called the chronotron. In it, 
she. showed him zvondrous Jonbar, her 
city, lying far-off in possible futurity. 
Jonbar s destiny, she told him, and even 
her ozvn, zvas in his hands. 

“Don’t fly tomorrow,’’ she zvarned 
him. “Or Jonbar will be slain!’’ 

Lanning obeyed, giving up his oppor- 
tunity for his first solo flight because he 
had fallen in love zvith her vanishing 
image. And Barry Halloran was killed 
in his stead. 

Grief-stricken, Lanning left America. 
And Sorainya appeared to him, floating 
beside the rail of his ship in the tropics, 
on her golden shell of Time. Red-mailed 
zvarrior queen of Gyronchi, splendid and 
alluring, she called to him to leap to the 
shell and return zvith her to share her 
throne. 

He zvas about to leap, when Lethonee 
came back to zvarn him. For the shell 
zvas but an hnmaterial image. He would 
have fallen to die in the shark-infested 
sea. Sorainya vanished, angered. And 
Lethonee e.rplained. 



Jonbar and Gyronchi are tzvo conflict- 
ing possible zvorlds of future probability. 
Either of them may be made real, by 
the fifth-dimensional progression. But 
not both. They are fighting for survival. 
And the “lamp of reality’’, Lethonee 
says, is in Lanning’s hands. She and 
Sorainya are each beckoning him to 
carry it into her own hall of possible fu- 
turity. The choice is his — the outcome 
veiled in unresolved probability. 

Haunted, Lanning walked bezvildered 
through the years. Lethonee guarded 
his life. Sorainya tried again to lure him 
to death. He became war correspondent, 
pilot, soldier — fighting always the right 
of might. In 1938, flying zvith Lao 
Meng Shan to defend Hankozv from air 
raiders, he was shot down. 

Plunging toward death, they were 
taken aboard a strange ghost-ship, re- 
vived by doctors from Jonbar. Barry 
Halloran is there, alive again, amid a 
dozen fighting men — all snatched from 
death by the mysterious dynat. 

Captain of the Chronion is Wil Mc- 
Lan. Now queerly aged, tzvisted from 
torture, he tells in a voiceless whisper 
how he mastered Time with the geodesic 
analyzer. Lie sazv Sorainya, loved her, 
built the ship to cruise Time to reach her 
in Gyronchi. But she imprisoned him 
ti-eacherously, tortured him for the se- 
cret of Time, and let Glarath, high priest 
of the strange gyrane, study the Chro- 
ion. 

Lethonee helped him escape, guided 
him to Jonbar. Unzvittingly. his experi- 
ment has altered the trend of probability 
from Jonbar toward Gyronchi. To de- 




119 




Concluding a great 
novel of Time and 
conflicting Futures, 



In the air of Sorainya’s great hall, the dim shape of the Chronion appeared — 
and snapped to solidity as the mist of Time dissolved from it. 



]cnd menaced Jonbar, IVil McLan Ims 
come back to gather the Legion oj Time. 

He makes Lanning commander. They 
return to Jonbar. But sotne triumph of 
dyronchi extitiguishes the probability of 
Jonbar, and it disappears about them. 
Lethonee dissolves from Lanning's arms. 

Aboard the Chronion, they find that 
the enemy, now with a time ship of their 
own, have used the gj-rane’s power to 
drag some vital object from the past. It 
VMS the resulting zvarp of probability 
that obliterated Jonbar. 

The Chronion raids Gyronchi to re- 



cover the object, and so restore the pos- 
sibility of Jonbar's existence. Lanning 
leads seven men into Sorainya’s citadel. 
All save he and Barry Halloran are 
killed fighting her huge, guardian ants. 
They break into her strong room, find 
the mysterious object sealed in a brick 
of black cement, and start back to the 
Clironion. 

But Sorainya appears suddenly be- 
fore them, in her vast throne hall, lead- 
ing another horde of the gigantic ants. 

“She has cut us off!” Lanning gasps. 
“There’s no zvay out " 



120 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



XII, 

B ut one weapon now re- 
mained to the two men standing 
alone beside the diamond throne 
before Sorainya and her charging horde 
of giant ants: Barry Halloran’s blood- 
stained Mauser. 

“Quick !” urged Lanning. His red fin- 
gers closed hard on the precious black 
brick that was the very cornerstone of 
menaced Jonbar. “Fire ! There’s time 
enough to get — her!” 

Yet, as soon as Barry raised the rifle, 
he was sorry he had spoken. For the 
queen of Gyrohchi, in her black-plumed 
panoply, was too splendid to be slain. 
All the mocking, glorious beauty of So- 
rainya returned, as when she had come 
to him on the golden shell. Demon- 
queen ! He bit his lip, and fought down 
a frantic impulse to snatch Barry’s level 
rifle. 

The gun crashed, and Lanning waited, 
with a stricken heart, to see Sorainya 
fall. But it was one of the great ants 
that stumbled and clutched with four 
queer limbs at its armor shell. 

“I had it on her,” muttered Halloran. 
“But they’d get us just the same. And 
she’s a woman. Sort of — beautiful !” 
Lanning reeled, and the anvil of agony 
rang louder in his brain. His taut fin- 
gers grasped the brick, and his dulled 
mind groped foggily for any possible 
way back to the ship, however desperate. 
But there was none. 

And the voiceless question of Wil 
McLan was rasping in his ears : “Could 
any man kill Sorainya?” 

But there was something His 

dazed brain spun. Sorainya must be 
destroyed, so Wil McLan had said. And 
Lethonee had told him, long ago, that 
he must choose one of the twain, and so 
doom the other. His heart came up in 
his throat, and he reached out a trem- 
bling hand. 

“Give me ” 

But the rifle had snapped, empty. 



Halloran flung it down, folded his crim- 
soned arms, stood waiting grimly. Lan- 
ning bent to pick up the gun, gasping: 
“Mustn’t give up, alive! That prison 
of horror ” 

But Sorainya had paused, leveled the 
yellow needle of her sword. A hot blue 
spark hissed to the rifle. Tanning’s hand 
jerked away from the half-fused weapon, 
seared, nerveless. Too late. She had 
them 

The golden bugle of her voice pealed 
down the hall, triumphant: “Well, 

Denny Lanning! So you prefer Gy- 
ronchi ? And the dungeon, to my throne 
here ” 

Lanning blinked. Sorainya and her 
charging horde were already halfway 
down the hall. Beneath her crested hel- 
met, he could see that clear-cut face still 
white with vengeful anger ; those long, 
green eyes cold as ice and cruel with a 
pitiless mockery. But something was 
coming between — a shadow, a thickening 
silver veil. 

The shadow grew abruptly real. 
Breathless, Lanning rubbed at his eyes, 
shuddering to the shock of incredulous 
hope. For it was the Chronion! 

The green glow fading slowly from 
her polar disks, the time ship’s silver 
hull dropped to the floor before the 
throne. The small figure of Lao Meng 
Shan, on the foredeck, turned the Maxim 
mounted there toward Sorainya and the 
kothrin — and then fell desperately to tak- 
ing the gun apart, for it was jammed. 

The thin, twisted figure of Wil Mc- 
Lan, under his crystal dome, was beck- 
oning urgently. After that first stunned 
instant, Lanning caught at Barry’s arm, 
and they ran frantically to climb aboard. 

SORAINYA screamed a wild battle 
cry. With a flashing sweep of her 
golden sword, she led the great ants on 
at an unchecked run. A scattering vol- 
ley from their heavy guns peppered the 
Chronion. 

The turret revolved beneath the dome. 



LEGION OF TIME 



121 



and t)ie yellow ray flamed upon Lanning 
and Halloran from the crystal gun, to 
pull them into the field of the ship. 

Lanning had glimpsed the blind, be- 
wildered figure of the navy airman, Wil- 
lie Rand, stark and alone on the deck. 
But, when he and Halloran tumbled 
breathless over the rail, finding Shan 
still busy with the useless Maxim, Rand 
was gone. 

“Look, Denny !” Barry Halloran was 
hoarse with an awed admiration. “The 
damn blind fool !’ 

He pointed toward Sorainya’s horde, 
and Lanning saw Willie Rand, going to 
tneet them. Bandaged head bent low, 
he moved at a blind, stumbling run. 
The broken Mauser was level in his 
hands, the whetted bayonet gleaming. 

The giant ants paused before that soli- 
tary charge as if bewildered. Sorainya’s 
fierce shout urged them on. Their guns 
rattled, and the sailor’s body jerked to 
the smacking impacts of the bullets. 
But he ran on. 

Lanning staggered to the deck speak- 
ing tube, gasping: “Wil, can we help 
him ?’’ 

Wil McLan, under the dome, shook 
his white head. 

“No,’’ the whisper came. “But it’s 
what he wanted. Useless — but terrible. 
Grand !’’ 

Even Sorainya halted. Her golden 
needle leveled and spat blue fire. Wil- 
lie Rand lurched, and his clothing be- 
gan to smoke. But he staggered on, 
to meet the yellow axes lifted. 

Lanning had dropped on his knees, 
to help the Chinese with the jammed 
gun. But he saw Rand come to the 
rank of ants. He saw the flashing bayo- 
net, as if guided by an extra-sensory 
vision, drive deep into a black thorax. 
• Then the golden axes fell 

But Wil McLan, on his bridge, had 
spun his shining wheel, closed a key. 
And the Chronion was gone from So- 
rainya’s hall, back into the blue, shim- 
mering gulf of her own timeless track. 



Lanning reeled through the turret, 
where Duflfy Clark was on duty behind 
the crystal gun, and up to join Wil 
McLan below the dome. The old man 
seiaed his arm, eagerly. 

“Well, Denny! You got it?’’ 

“Yes.” And Lanning demanded: 
“But how’d you come to meet us in the 
hall? That’s all that saved us! And 
where’s Barinin?” 

“There was an alarm,” husked the 
voiceless man. “They discovered us on 
the ledge, and turned down one of the 
gyrqne rays from the battlements. Ba- 
rinin was caught at the gun. Crisped 
black ” 

He shuddered. 

“We had to take off; and I drove 
down into the future, to avoid meeting 
their time ship. I hadn’t wanted to en- 
ter the fortress with the ship — when we 
couldn’t explore it with the chronoscope. 
There was too much danger of collision 
with some solid object — with very dis- 
astrous results. 

“But that was the only course possi- 
ble. We had to take the risk — and we 
won.” He sighed wearily, mopped 
sweat from his scar-seamed face. “That 
hall was the largest room. From my 
plans, and a study of the ruins in fu- 
turity, I approximated its position. And 
we came back to where I guessed it had 
been. That’s all. But where is — it?” 

LANNING handed him the glazed, 
black brick from Sorainya’s strong room. 
His hollow, blue eyes lit with an eager 
gleam. 

“What could it be?” 

“Let’s open it up,” the old man 
rasped, “and find out !” The brick trem- 
bled in his hands. “We've got to dis- 
cover where Glarath and Sorainya took 
it from — ^in Time and Space — and put it 
back there. If we can.” 

Lanning lifted his eyes from the black 
fascination of the little block that was 
the foundation of all Jon bar. Anxiously, 
he caught at McLan’s twisted arm. 



122 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“Do you think ” he gasped. “Will 

they follow ?” 

McLan’s hollow eyes dulled. “Of 
course they’ll follow,’’ he whispered. “It 
means life and death to Gyronchi, as 
well as to Jonbar. And they liave the 
time sliip — if only one. If they fail to 
overtake us on the way, tliey will surely 
be waiting where the object must be 
placed. They know the spot.’’ 

He repressed a little sigh of grim fore- 
brnling. 

“And now we are only five.” 

But the white head came erect, and 
the haggard eyes flashed again, with a 
bleak bitterness of hate. 

“But you saw Sorainya’s dungeons,” 
he rasped. “Now you know why Gy- 
ronchi must be destroyed.” He handed 
the brick to Lanning. “See if you can 
break it open.” 

“I know,” I^anning was whispering 
grmily. “For I’ve seen Jonbar, and — 
Lethonce.” 

The block was glass-hard. He tapped 
at it vainly,, broke his pocket knife on 
it. then carried it down to the deck. It 
yielded at last to hack saw, chisel, and 
sledge. It proved to be a thick-walled 
bo.x. packed with white fiber. 

Breathless, with quivering fingers, 
Lanning drew out the packing, and un- 
covered — a thick, V’-shaped piece of 
rusty iron. 

His vague, wild expectations had been 
all of something spectacular. Perhaps 
some impressive document of State upon 
which history should have turned. Or 
the martyr’s weapon that might have 
slain some enemy of progress. And dis- 
appointment drove a leaden pain through 
liis heart. With heavy feet, he carried 
it back to Wil McLan. 

“Just a piece of scrap iron,” he said 
wearily. “Just an old magnet, out of 
the magneto of a Model T. And we 
spent all those lives to find it!” 

“That doesn’t matter, what it is,” the 
old luati whispered. “It was important 
enough, when Gyronchi wrenched it out 



of the past, to deflect the whole direc- 
tion of probability — to destroy even the 
possibility of Jonbar. 

“Now, with the chronoscope, I must 
try to find its place. .And then we must 
put it back — if Sorainya will let us!” 
He looked suddenly up at lanning. 
“But you’re tired, Denny, And you’ve 
been hurt.” 

Lanning had hardly been conscious of 
fatigue. Even the ring and throb of 
pain in the back of his brain Irtul become 
a tolerable thing, a vague and distant 
phenomenon that did not greally mat- 
ter. And he felt a great surprise, now, 
when the dome went black and he knew 
that he was falling on the floor. 

XIII. 

LANNING woke with his head band- 
aged, lying in the little green-walled 
hospital. Barry Halloran grinned at 
him from the opposite bed. The little 
cockney, Duffy Clark, came presently 
with a covered tray. 

“Cap’n McLan?” he drawled. “W’hy 
’e’s on ’is bridge, sor, with hall ’is 
bloomin’ gadgets. ’E’s tryin’ to find 
where that bloody she-devil and ’er 
blarsted ants got ’old of that magnet.” 

“Any luck?” demanded Lanning. 

He shook a tousled head. 

“Don’t look it, sor. Wot with hall 
Spayce and Time to search for the spot. 
And the woman and the blarsted priest 
is arfter us, sor. in a black ship full of 
the bloomin’ hants! We’ve seen it — 
twice, sor. A blinkin’ ’ell-ship!” 

“But we can outrun them!” broke in 
Barry Halloran. “The Chronion can 
give ’em all they want.” 

“Ayn’t easy, sor!” Clark shook his 
head. “Cap’n McLan’s running the 
fields at full potential, with the bloomin’ 
converters overloaded. And still they’re 
'olding us, neck and neck. Lor, the 
bloody swine !” 

An overwhelming lethargy was still 
in Lanning. He ate, and slept again. 



LEGION OF TIME 



123 



And many hours of the ship’s time must 
have passed when he suddenly awoke, 
aware of another sound above the accel- 
erated throb of the atomic converters — 
the hammering of the Maxim! 

He tumbled out of bed, with Barry 
Halloran after him, and ran to the deck. 
The firing had stopped, however, when 
they reached it. The Chronion was 
once more thrumming alone through the 
flickering blue abyss. 

Butalittle Duffy Clark lay beside the 
Maxim, smoking and still, his body half 
consumed by the gyrane ray. 

.Shuddering, Banning climbed up into 
the dome. 

“They caught us,” sobbed voiceless 
Wil McLan. “They'll catch us again. 
The converters are overdriven. As the 
grids are consumed, they lose efficiency. 
They got poor Clark. That leaves four.” 

The question burning in his eyes. Ban- 
ning whispered: “Did you find — any- 

thing?” 

Solemnly, the old man nodded, and 
Banning listened breathlessly. 

“The time is an aftemobn in August 
of the year 1921,” whispered Wil Mc- 
Ban. “The broken geodesics of Jonbar 
had already given us a clue to that. 
And I have found the place, with the 
chronoscope.” 

Banning gripped his arm. “Where?” 

“It’s a little valley in the Ozarks of 
Arkansas. But I'll show you the de- 
cisive scene.” 

The little man limped to the metal 
cabinet of the geodesic analyzer, and his 
broken fingers carefully set Its dials. A 
greenish luminescence filled the crystal 
block, and cleared. I^nning bent for- 
ward eagerly, to peer into that pellucid 
window of probability. 

An impoverished farm lay before his 
eyes, folded in the low and ancient hills. 
A sagging shack of gray, paintless pine, 
a broken window gaping black and the 
roof inadequately patched with rusty tin, 
leanetl crazily beside an eroded rocky 



field. The sloping cow pasture, above, 
was scantily covered with brush and 
gnarled little trees. 

A SMABB, freckled boy, in faded 
overalls and a big ragged straw hat, was 
trudging slowly barefoot down the slope, 
accompanied by a gaunt, yellow dog, 
driving two lean red-spotted cows home 
to the milking pen. 

“Watch him,” whispered Wil McBan. 

And Banning followed the idle path of 
of the boy. He stopped to encourage the 
dog digging furiously after a rabbit. He 
squatted to watch the activities of a 
colony of ants. He ran to catch a gaudy 
butterfly, and carefully dissected it. He 
rose unwillingly to answer the halloo of 
a slatternly woman from the house be- 
low, and followed the cows. 

Wil McBan’s gnarled fingers closed 
on Banning’s arm, urgently. 

“Now!” 

Idly w’hittling with a battered knife, 
the boy spied something beside a sumac 
bush, and stooped to pick it up. The 
object blurred oddly in the crystal 
screen, so that Banning could not dis- 
tinguish it. And vision faded, as Wil 
McBan snapped oft' the mechanism. 

“Well?” demanded Banning, bewil- 
dered. “What has that to do with Jon- 
bar?” 

“That is John Barr,” rasped the voice- 
less man. “For that metropolis of fu- 
ture possibility is — or might.be — named 
in honor of the boy, barefoot son of a 
tenant farmer. He is twelve years old 
in 1921. You saw him at the turning 
point of his life — and the life of the 
world.” 

“But I don't understand!” 

“The bifurcation of possibility is in 
the thing he stoops to pick up,” whis- 
pered Wil McBan. “It is either the 
magnet that we recovered from Sorain- 
ya’s citadel — or an oddly colored pebble 
which lies beside it. 

“And that choice — which Sorainya 



124 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



sought to decide by removing the mag- 
net — determines which of two possible 
John Barrs is ultimately fixed in the real 
universe by fifth dimensional progres- 
sion.” 

“But how?” said Lanning. “From 
such a small thing !” 

“If he picks up the discarded mag- 
net, he will discover the mysterious at- 
traction it has for the blade of his knife, 
and the mysterious north-seeking power 
of its poles. He will wonder, experi- 
ment, theorize. Curiosity will deepen. 
The scientist will be bom in him. 

“He will study, borrow books on sci- 
ence from the teacher of the one-room 
school in the hollow. He will pres- 
ently leave the farm, run away from a 
domineering father who sneers at ‘book 
lamin’,’ to work his way through col- 
lege. And then he will become a teacher 
of science in country schools, an ama- 
teur experimenter. 

“Sometimes the flame will bum low 
in him, inspiration be forgotten in the 
drudgery of life. He will marry, raise 
two children, absorbed for years in the 
cares of family life. But the old thirst 
to know will never die. The march of 
science will rekindle the flame. Finally, 
at the age of fifty-five, he will run away 
again — this time from a domineering 
wife and an obnoxious son-in-law — to 
carry on his research. 

“A bald, plump little man, mild-man- 
nered, dreamy, impractical, he will work 
for years alone in a little cottage in the 
Ozarks. Every possible cent will go 
for the makeshift apparatus powered 
from a crude homemade hydro-electric 
plant. He will go often hungry. Once, 
a kindly neighbor will find him starving, 
nearly dead of influenza. 

“BUT AT LAST, in 1980, a tired but 
triumphant little man of seventy-one, 
he will publish his great discovery. The 
dynatomic tensors — shortened to dynat. 
A radically new principle in physics. 



making possible the release of atomic 
energy under control of the human will. 

“Given freely to the world, the dymt 
will soon solve many problems of power, 
communication, and food — although 
John Barr, not waiting for material suc- 
cess, that same year will be quietly buried 
by his neighbors beside a little church 
in the Ozarks. And presently the illim- 
itable power of the dynat will be the 
lifeblood of the splendid new metropolis 
of Jonbar, christened after him. 

“Nor is that all. Ennobled humanity 
will soar on the wings of this most mag- 
nificent slave. For the dynat will bring 
a new contact of mind and matter, new 
senses, new capabilities. Gradually, as 
time goes on, mankind will become 
adapted to the full use of the dynat." 

The whisper was hoarse with a breath- 
less awe. 

“And at last a new race will arise, 
calling themselves the dymn. The splen- 
did children of John Barr’s old discov- 
ery, they will possess faculties and pow- 
ers that we can hardly dream of ” 

“Wait!” cried Lanning. “I’ve seen 
the dynon! When Lethonee first came, 
so long ago, to my room in Cambridge, 
she showed me New Jonbar, in the jewel 
of the chronotron. A city of majestic, 
shining pylons. And, flying above them, 
a glorious people, robed, it seemed, in 
pure fire!” 

Hollow eyes shining, Wil McLan nod- 
ded solemnly. 

“I, too, have looked into New Jon- 
bar,” he whispered. “I have seen the 
promised glory beyond — the triumphant 
flight of the dynon, from star to star, 
forever! In that direction, there was 
no ending to the story of mankind. 

“But in the other ” 

His white head shook. There was si- 
lence under the dome. Lanning could 
hear the swiftened throb of the convert- 
ers, driving them back through the blue 
shimmer of possibility toward the quiet 
scene in the Ozarks they had watched in 
the crystal block. He saw Lao Meng 



LEGION OF TIME 



125 



Shan cleaning the Maxim on the deck 
below. Barry Halloran, rifle ready, was 
peering alertly into the flickering abyss. 
Duffy Clark was already consigned to 
the gulf of Time. 

“If we fail to replace the magnet,” the 
grave whisper at last resumed, “so that 



a precious spark. It will remain curi- 
ously similar, yet significantly different. 

“JOHN BARR, in this outcome also, 
will run away from his father’s home, 
but now to become a shiftless migratory 
worker. He will marry the same woman, 







Against the Hickering mist of the abyss of Time, the vast black ship from 
Cyronchi loomed, her decks swarming with Sorainya’s huge fighting-ants. 



the boy John Barr picks up the pebble 
instead, the tide of probability will be 
turned — as, indeed, it is turned — toward 
Gyronchi. 

"The boy will toss the pebble in his 
hand, then throw it in his sling to kill a 
singing bird. And all his life will want 



raise the same two children, and leave 
them in the same way. The same me- 
chanical ingenuity, that might have dis- 
covered the dymt, will lead to the in- 
vention of a new gambling device, on 
which he will make and lose a fortune. 
He will die — equally penniless — in the 



126 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



same year, and be buried in the same 
graveyard in the Ozarks. 

“The secret of atomic power will now 
be discovered nine years later, but with 
a control far less complete than that at- 
tained through the perfection of the 
dynat. The discoverer will be one Ivor 
Gyros, an exiled Russian-Greek, work- 
ing with a renegade Buddhist priest in 
an abandoned monastery in Burma. 
Calling the secret the gyrane, the two 
will guard it selfishly, use it to destroy 
their enemies and impress the supersti- 
tious. They will found a new fanatical 
religion that will sweep the world, and 
a new despotic empire.” 

The whisper paused again, gravely. 

“That is the way of the cult of the 
gyrane, and of Sorainya’s dark dynasty,” 
rasped Wil McLan, at last. “A way of 
evil ! You have seen the end of it.” 

“I have!” 

A little shudder touched Banning, at 
memory of that desolate scene in the 
crystal block : mankind annihilated in 
the final war of the priests and the kings, 
by the gyrane and the monstrous muta- 
tions it had bred. The jungle returning 
across a devastated planet, to cover the 
rusting pile of Sorainya’s citadel and 
the shattered ruins of the vast, black 
temple. • 

Quivering, then, his hands grasped at 
tlie rusty V of the magnet, lying beside 
the controls of the chronoscope. 

“And so And so all we have to 

do is to put it back, where the boy John 
Barr will pick it up?” 

“All,” nodded Wil McLan. “If we 
can !” 

Lanning started, then, and shivered 
to the rattle of the Maxim. His scarred 
face stiff with startled dread, Wil Mc- 
Lan was pointing. Lanning turned. 
Close beyond the dome, he saw the 
square, black mass of the time ship from 
Gyronchi. 

“Mankind !” cried McLan. “The con- 
verters — ^failing !” 



He flung his broken body toward the 
controls. 

But already, Lanning saw, the decks 
had touched. In the face of the ham- 
mering Maxim, a horde of the gigantic 
ants, monstrous spawn of atomic radia- 
tion, was pouring over the rail. Lead- 
ing them with the flame of her golden 
sword, magnificent in her crimson pano- 
ply, came Sorainyal 

XIV. 

“SORAINYA!” Lahning gasped. 
“She’s aboard!” 

“Sorainya!” It was a stricken, husk- 
ing echo from old Wil McLan. His 
broken hands came up, automatically, 
to the odd little tube of bright-worn sil- 
ver that Lanning had wondered about 
so often, hanging at his throat. That 
ancient, smouldering hate glazed his 
sunken eyes again. Yet a strange agony 
racked his whisper. “Sorainya — must 
she die?” 

“The ants!” warned Lanning. “Pour- 
ing aboard ! Can we get away ?” 

Wil McLan started, and his hands fell 
to the controls again. 

“Can try!” he rasped. “But that con- 
verter ” 

A score of the great ants were rush- 
ing the Maxim on the foredeck. Lao 
Men Shan was crouched behind the 
rattling machine gun. And Barry Hal- 
loran stood beside it, a sturdy, smiling 
giant of battle, waiting with his bayonet 
for. the ants. 

“Fight ’em!” his great voice was 
booming out cheerfully. “Fight ’em !” 

Grinning blandly, the little Chinese 
made no sound at all. 

With a ringing war cry, Sorainya had 
turned toward the turret, followed by a 
dozen ants. The needle of her golden 
sword flashed up, pointing at Wil Mc- 
Lan in the dome. And her green-eyed 
face was suddenly terrible with such a 
blazing passion of hate that Lanning 
shuddered from its fury. 



LEGION OF TIME 



127 



“She’s coming here !’’ sobbed the dry, 
hoarse whisper of Wil McLan. “After 
me!’’ Terror flared red beside the an- 
cient hatred and the puzzling agony in 
his eyes. “Ever since I refused to aid 
her conquest— — ’’ 

Lanning was already running down 
the turret stair. 

“Fll try to stop her !’’ 

And the whisper rasped after him: 
"And I’ll pull away — if the converters 
will stand it.’’ 

In the little turret, beside the crystal 
helix-gun that projected the temporal 
field, Lanning belted on a Luger. He 
snatched the last Mauser from the rack, 
loaded it. His eye caught one hand 
grenade left in the box. He scooped it 
up, gripped the safety pin. 

The little door was groaning and ring- 
ing to a furious assault from without — 
for the Chronion had not been designed 
for a figliting ship. It yielded suddenly, 
and a great black ant pitched through. 

Lanning tossed the last grenade 
through the doorway, and ripped at the 
ant with his bayonet. He reeled to the 
burning stench of formic acid. A sav- 
age mandible ripped trousers and skin 
from his leg. But the third thrust stilled 
the monster, and he leapt into the door- 
way. 

Outside, the grenade had cleared a 
little space. Three of the monsters lay 
where it had tossed them, crushed and 
dying. But the warrior queen stood un- 
harmed in the crimson mail, with eight 
more ants about her. A savage light of 
battle flamed in her long green eyes, and 
she flung the ants forward with her 
golden sword. 

“Denny Lanning,” her voice cut cold 
as steel. “You were warned. You de- 
fied Gyronchi, and chose her of Tonbar. 
So— die!” 

Yet Lanning, waiting grim and silant 
in the turret’s doorway, had a moment’s 
respite. He had time for a glimpse of 
Barry and Shan, now engaged in a 
furious battle about the Maxim, holding 



back a murderous avalanche of ants. 
He caught Barry’s gasping, “Fight! 
Fight I Fight ’em, team !” 

HE SAW BRIEFLY the high, black 
side of the other ship, beyond. He 
glimpsed the gaunt, cadaverous, bjack- 
robed priest, Glarath, safe on his quar- 
ter-deck. H saw a second company of 
ants, aglitter with gold and crimson 
weapons, gathered by the rail, ready to 
leap after the first. 

Panic gripped his heart. It was an 
overwhelming horde 

But suddenly the black ship was gone, 
with Glarath and the rank of ants. 
There was only the flicker of the blue 
abyss. The throb of the over-driven 
conveVters was heavier beneath the deck. 
Wil McLan had driven the Chronion 
ahead once more in the race toward the 
past. 

But Sorainya and her boarding party 
remained upon the deck. The Maxim 
suddenly ceased to fire. Shan and Barry 
were surrounded. Then the eight at- 
tacking ants converged upon Lanning in 
the doorway, urged on by Sorainya’s 
pealing shouts, and he had attention for 
nothing beyond them. 

The bayonet had proved more effective 
than bullets against the great ants. And 
now, defending the doorway, Lanning 
fought with the same deadly technique 
he had mastered in Sorainya’s citadel. 

A ripping lunge, a twist, a savage 
thrust. One ant fell. Another. A 
third. Fallen black bodies made an acrid 
reek. Spilled vital fluids were slippery 
on the deck. 

The bullet from a crimson gun raked 
Lanning’s side. A golden axe touched 
his head with searing pain, where a ten- 
derness remained from the other battle. 
A heavy gun, flung spinning like a club, 
knocked out his breath, sent him stag- 
gering back for a dangerous instant. 
But he recovered himself, lunged again. 

Sorainya ran back and forth behind 
the ants, shrilling her battle cry. A 



128 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



cruel, smiling elation lit her beauteous 
face, and her narrowed green eyes were 
cold and bright with the lust of blood. 

Once, when the ants fell back and 
gave her an opening, she leveled the 
needle of her sword at Lanning. Know- 
ing the deadly fire it held, he ducked, 
and whipped a shot at her red-mailed 
body with the Luger. 

His bullet whined harmless from her 
armor. And blue flame jetted past his 
shoulder. A jolting shock hurled him 
aside against the wall. Half blind, dazed, 
he slapped at his burning shirt, and 
reeled back to meet the remaining ants. 

Four were left. His staggering lunge 
caught one. And another fell, queerly, 
when he had not touched it. And a 
hearty voice came roaring to his ears, 
“Fight, gang! Fight!” 

And he saw that the battle on the 
foredeck was ended. A great pile of the 
dead, black ants lay about the Maxim. 
Lao Meng Shan was looking over the 
barricade, with a curiously cheerful grin 
fading from his still, yellow face. 

And Barry Halloran, crimson and 
terrible with the marks of battle, came 
chanting down the deck. It was a burst 
from his Luger that had dropped the 
monster beside Lanning. He flung the 
empty pistol aside, and leveled his drip- 
ping bayonet. 

Lanning was swaying, gasping for 
breath, fighting a descending Windness 
as he fought the two remaining ants. 
He feinted, lunged, recovered, parried, 
still defending the turret door. 

But he saw Sorainya turn to meet 
Barry Halloran, and heard her low, 
mocking laugh. He saw the rifle shift 
in Barry’s crimson hands, ready for the 
lunge that might pierce the queen’s 
woven mail. 

“Fight ” 

BARRY’S chanting stopped on a low, 
breathless cry, astonished. The grim 
smile of battle was driven from his face 
by a sudden, involuntary admiration. 



“My God. I can’t ” 

The bayonet wavered in his slacken- 
ing grasp. And the queen of war, with 
a brilliant smile and a mocking flirt of 
her sable plume, darted quickly forward. 
The golden needle flickered out in a 
lightning thrust, drove his body through 
and through. 

Lanning’s reeling lunge caught one 
of the attacking ants. He ripped, twisted, 
recovered. He staggered back from a 
flashing yellow blade, lurched forward 
again to engage the survivor. 

But his eyes went, again and again, 
to that other tableau, so that he saw it as 
a continuous picture. He saw the prac- 
ticed twist that withdrew Sorainya’s 
blade. He saw her draw it through her 
naked hand, and then blow Barry a ma- 
licious kiss, from fingers red with his 
own lifeblood. 

A dark fountain burst and - foamed 
from Barry Halloran’s heart. -The ad- 
miration on his face gave way to a hard, 
grim hate. His hands tried to lift the 
rifle, but it slipped away from them and 
fell. And his stained face became ter- 
rible with a bewildered, helpless baffle- 
ment. 

“Denny ” It was a soft, bubbling 

sob. “Kill ” 

And he slipped down, beyond So- 
rainya. 

Lanning brought his staggered mind 
back to the one remaining ant. It was 
too late to avoid the descending golden 
axe. But his weary muscles had time 
to complete the lunge. A little deflected, 
the flat of the blade crashed against his 
head, drowned him in a black flood of 
pain. 

Automatically, the run-down machine 
of his body finished that familiar rhythm 
— rip, twist, slash. And then, slowly, it 
toppled down beside the dying ant. 

Still, for an instant, some atom of 
awareness lingered. Don’t quit now! 
it shrieked. Or Sorainya will kill Wil 
McLan. She will take the magnet back. 
And Jonbar will be lost. 



LEGION OF TIME 



129 



Btrt that despairing scream was 
drowned in dark oblivion. 

XV. 

AGONY WAS still a rush and a 
dniniming beat through all of Lanning’s 
head. But a frantic purpose that had 
lived even through unconsciousness 
lifted him reeling to his feet. 

The throbbing deck lurched and 
wheeled beneath him. And the black 
mist in his eyes veiled the flickering blue. 
But he saw Lao Mcng Shan and Barry 
Halloran lying dead in the midst of the 
slaughtered ants. 

He saw that Sorainya was gone from 
the deck, and the malicious triumph of 
her golden voice floated down to him. 
“You have led me a long pursuit, Wil 
Lan. I thank you for the pleasure of 
the chase. Remember, once I promised 
you my sword ” 

A terrible scream, because it was 
voiceless, whispered, came rasping down 
from the dome. And then Banning 
heard Sorainya’s low, throaty laugh, 
pleased and pitiless. 

“Perhaps you had the means to de- 
stroy me, Wil McLan. But never the 
will — for I know why you first came to 
Gyronchi! Other men have sought to 
slay me, as silly moths might seek with 
their wings to beat out the flame. They 
failed.” 

“We'll see, Sorainya,” Banning mut- 
tered under his gasping breath. “For 
Barry’s sake !” 

His body moved stiffly, like a rusted 
machine. It staggered and reeled. Pain 
rushed like a river in his brain. A mist 
of darkness veiled his sight, shot with 
Winding wheels of red. All his body 
was a throbbing ache, his garments glued 
to it with drying blood. His whole being 
revolted from eflfort. 

But he found the Mauser, picked it up 
in numbed, fumbling hands, and stag- 
gered into the turret that he had tried 
to guard where the metal stair led up 



to the bridge. The caressing mockery 
of Sorain>'a’s golden tones came down 
to him again, boasting. 

“You were a fool, Wil McLan, to seek 
my doom. For, since you brought us 
the secret of Time, the gyrane can con- 
quer death also. I may be the last of 
my line — but I shall reign forever ! For 
I searched the future for the hour of 
my death. And it is not ” 

Reeling up the turret stair. Banning 
came into the bridge beneath the dome. 
Wil McLan was lying on the floor, be- 
neath the shining wheel. His broken 
hands were set down in a great dark 
pool of his own blood, to lift his shoul- 
ders. His white head was thrown back, 
so that his scarred, thin face could look 
up at Sorainya. The dark, deep-sunken 
eyes were fixed on the woman, blazing 
with a beaten, hopeless hate. 

Hung by its thin white chain from his 
neck, the little silver tube touched the 
spreading pool of blood. 

Lithe and tall in the red splendor of 
her black-plumed mail. Sorainya stood 
facing him, crimson drops still falling" 
from her thin, yellow sword. But she 
heard Lanning’s unsteady step, and 
turned swiftly to meet him as he came 
to the top of the stair. 

A bright, fierce exultation lit the 
smooth, white beauty of her face. A 
deadly, smiling eagerness flashed in her 
long emerald eyes, at sight of Banning. 
And her blade cut an arc of golden fire 
before him. 

“Well, Denny Banning!” her suave 
voice greeted him. “So you would try, 
where the others failed? The champion 
of her! Then carry her my message, to 
Jonbar, in — Nothingness !” 

Her ringing blade struck sparks from 
his bayonet, 

SHE WAS beautiful. Tall almost as 
Banning, and strong with the lithe, 
quick strength of a tigress. The woven 
red mail followed every flowing curve 
of her. Wide nostrils flared, and high 



130 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



breasts rose to her quickened breathing. 
One red hand clutched the magnet. 
Bright yellow hair was bursting from 
under the black-crested helmet. A wild, 
fierce smile was fixed on her face, and 
she attacked with the speed of a panther 
leaping. 

Banning parried with the bayonet, 
thrust warily at her gleaming body. 
She swayed aside. The blade slid harm- 
less by her breast. And the yellow nee- 
dle flicked Banning’s shoulder with a 
whip of pain. 

His weapon was the longer, the heav- 
ier. And it made no difference, he tried 
to tell himself, that she was beautiful — 
for Barry’s death was still a dark agony 
writhing in him, and he could see Wil 
McBan on the floor behind her, gasping 
terribly for breath and following the 
battle with hate-lit, glazing eyes. 

But he fought a fatigue more deadly 
than Sorainya’s blade. All his strength 
had been poured out in the battle with 
the ants. Sorainya was fresh, and she 
had a tireless energy. The rifle grew 
leaden heavy in Banning’s hands. His 
vision dulled to a blurry monochrome, 
and Sorainya was but a fatal shadow 
that could not die. 

He was glad she blurred, for he could 
no longer see her lissome loveliness. 
He tried to see, in her place, the black- 
armored horror of one of her ants. He 
lunged into the rhythm of the old at- 
tack — rip, twist, slash. 

But the blade slithered again, harm- 
less, from the gleaming curve of her 
body. And the flash of her sword drew 
a red line of pain down his arm. She 
leapt back, with a pantherine grace — 
and then stood, as if to mock him, with 
the yellow needle down at her side. 

“No, Denny Banning!’’ She gave a 
little breathless laugh. “Strike if you 
will — for I shall never die. I scanned 
all the future for the hour of my death, 
and found no danger. I cannot be 
slain!’’ 

“I’ll see!’’ Banning caught a long 



gasping breath, and shook his ringing 
head to clear it. “For Barry ’’ 

With the last atom of his ebbing 
strength, he gripped the rifle hard and 
rushed across the tiny room under the 
dome. He thrust the gleaming bayonet, 
with every ounce of muscle, up under the 
curve of her breast, toward her heart. 

“Denny!" 

It was a choking sob of warning from 
Wil McBan. And the golden needle 
flashed up to touch the rifle. Blue fire 
hissed from its point. The rifle fell out 
of Banning’s hands. He staggered back- 
ward, stunned and blinded by the shock, 
smelling his seared hands and the burn- 
ing pungence of ozone. 

He caught his weight against the curve 
of the dome, and leaned there, shudder- 
ing. It took all his will to keep his knees 
from buckling. He caught a deep, rasp- 
ing breath, and blinked his eyes. 

He could see again. He saw Sorainya 
gliding forward, light as a dancer. Be- 
neath stray wisps of golden hair, her 
white face was dazzling with a smile. 
And her lazy voice chimed, gayly, “Now, 
Denny Banning! Who is immortal?’’ 

HER ARM flashed up as she spoke, 
slim and red in its sleeve of mail. A 
terrible, tigerish joy flashed in her long 
green eyes. And the sword, like a liv- 
ing thing, leapt at Banning’s heart. 

He struck at the blade, a stiff and 
awkward blow, with his empty hand. It 
slashed his wrist. Deflected a little, it 
drove through his shoulder', a cold, thin 
needle of numbing pain, and rang against 
the hard crystal behind him. 

Sorainya whipped out the sword, and 
wiped its thin length on her fingers. 
She blew him another red kiss, and stood 
waiting for him to fall. Her white smite 
was breathless, thirsty. 

“Well?” Her voice was a liquid ca- 
ress. “Another ?” 

Then Banning’s failing eyes went be- 
yond her. The tiny dome swam. It 
took a desperate effort to focus Wil 



LEGION OF TIME 



131 



McLan. But he saw the jerky little 
movement that broke the thin, white 
chain, tossed the tiny silver tube across 
the floor. He heard the voiceless, feeble 
gasp: “Break it, Denny! And her! 

For I — can’t!” 

Sorainya had sensed the movement 
behind her. Her breath caught sharply. 
And the yellow sword darted again, 
swift as a flash of light, straight for 
Lanning’s heart. Even the tigerish 
grace of that last thrust, he thought, was 
beautiful 

But the silver cylinder had rolled to 
his foot. Desperately^ — and shuddering 
with a cold, incredulous awareness that, 
somehow, he was so crushing Sorainya’s 
victorious beauty — he drove his heel 
down upon the tube. 

It made a tiny crunching sound. 

But Lanning didn’t look down. For 
his eyes were fixed, in a trembling, 
breathless dread, upon Sorainya. No 
visible hand had touched her. But, from 
tile instant his heel came down, she was 
— stricken. 

The bright blade slipped out of her 
hand, rang against the dome, and fell at 
Lanning’s feet. The smile was some- 
how frozen on her face, forgotten, life- 
less. Then, in a fractional second, her 
beauty was — erased. 

Her altered face was blind, hideous, 
pocked with queerly bluish ulcerations. 
Her features dissolved — frightfully — in 
blue corruption. And Lanning had an 
instant’s impression of a naked skull 
grinning fearfully out of the armor. 

And then Sorainya was gone. 

The woven red mail, for a weird frac- 
tional second, still held the curves of her 
form. It slumped grotesquely, and fell 
with a dull little thud on the floor. The 
plumed helmet clattered down beside it, 
rolled, and looked back at Lanning with 
an empty, enigmatic stare. 

L.anning tried to look back at Wil Mc- 
Lan, seeking an explanation of this ap- 
palling victory. But a thickening dark- 
ness shut out his vision, and the ring- 

AST— 9 



ing was deafening in his head. A shud- 
dering numbness, from the wound in his 
shoulder, spread to all his being. And 
his knees at last gave way. 

XVI. 

LANNING lay still on the floor of 
the dome, when awareness came back. 
The throb of the atomic converters came 
loud through the metal beneath his head. 
The anvil of agony still rang in his skull, 
and all his body was an aching, blood- 
clotted stiffness. But, queerly, the cold 
pain had ebbed from the sword-thrust in 
his shoulder. 

“Denny?” 

It was a voiceless sob, from Wil Mc- 
Lan, husky with an urgent pleading. 
Lanning was surprised that the old man 
still survived Sorainya’s stab. Despite 
the screaming protests of exhaustion and 
pain, he swayed once more to his feet, 
leaning against the curve of the dome. 
He blinked his clearing eyes, and found 
McLan still lying in the dark pool on the 
floor. 

“Wil! What can I do?” 

A broken hand pointed. 

“The needle in the drawer,” gasped 
McLan. “Four c.c. Intravenous ” 

Lanning stumbled to the control 
board, found, in the drawer beneath it, 
a bright hypodermic and a small bottle 
of heavy lead, marked : Dymtomic for- 
mula L 648. Filled, New York City, 
August, 1985. 

The liquid in the needle shone with 
a greenish luminescence. He pushed up 
McLan’s sleeve, thrust the point into the 
radial vein at the elbow, pushed home 
the little plunger. 

He examined the wound in the old 
man’s breast. It had already ceased to 
bleed. It looked — ^puzzlingly — as if it 
had been healing for days instead of 
minutes. 

“Thanks,” whispered McLan, “Now 
yourself — but only two c.c. !” 

He lay back on the floor, with his 



132 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



eyes closed. Lanning made the injec- 
tion into his own arm. It seemed that 
a quick tide of strength and power 
flowed through his veins. His dulled 
senses cleared, the aching stiflness ebbed 
away. Still he was dead-tired, still his 
battered head ached. But he felt some- 
thing of the same almost-mystical well- 
being that be had known when first 
aboard the Chronion, after the surgeons 
of Jon bar had brought him back from 
death. 

He picked up the rusty little magnet 
lying on the floor beside Sorainya’s 
empty armor. Was there still a cliance 
to put it back, and save Jonbar? He 
peered apprehensively out into the gulf 
of shimmering blue. What if Glarath 
overtook them again? 

The rhythmic beat of the converters 
beneath the deck suddenly wavered, 
slowed. Trouble, again. But Wil Mc- 
Lan, still white and trembling, pulled 
himself up behind the wheel, began to 
adjust the controls. 

“Do you think ?” demanded Lan- 

ning, an.xiously. “Can we put it back?” 

“If the converters hold out,” the old 
man whispered, “we can — try! Glarath 
will guard the spot, no doubt, witli his 
ship and the kothrhi. And you must 
fight this time alone. But I’ll be able to 
take you there. My old body is about 
finished, anyway, and ill-adapted to the 
dynat. But it gave me life enough for 
that.” 

The thrumming was becoming swifter 
again, steadier, as his broken hands 
touched keys and dials. 

“SORAINYA ?” The question 

burst from Lanning’s lips. “That tube 
I broke ?” His hand touched the twisted 
shoulder. “Wil, what happened to So- 
rainya?” 

The old man turned from the con- 
trols. Supporting his weight with both 
gnarled hands on the bright wheel, he 
looked at Lanning. The old hatred was 



gone from his sunken, eyes, and they 
were dark with an agony of grief. 

“I loved Sorainya,” came his whisper. 
“That tube held her life. I took it be- 
cause I thought I hated her ” He 

caught a sighing breath. “I did hate 
her. for all she had done to me! But 
still I could never break the tuljc.” - 
“But what was it?” Horror rough- 
ened Lanning’s voice. “I didn’t touch 
her. But she changed — dreadfully ! As 
if she had some terrible disease. She 
died. And then even her skeleton was 
gone !” 

Wil McLan’s hollow eyes were dry, 
glazed with pain. 

“Sorainya failed to discover the hour 
of her death when she searched her fu- 
ture,” came the tortured rasping. “For 
it was in her past! In the year that 
Sorainya mounted her throne, the Blue 
Death swept Gyronchi — a plague born 
of the poverty and squalor in which op- 
pression held the peasants. It was that 
pandemic that killed Sorainya.” 

“But ?” Lanning stared. “I 

don’t understand!” 

“^^’hen Lethonee helped me escape 
from Sorainya’s dungeons and recover 
the Chronion,” the whisper answered, 
“I determined to destroy Sorainya. I 
searched her past — ^with the chronoscope 
-^for a node of probability. I found it, 
in the year of the Blue Death. 

“For the priests of the gyrane man- 
aged to prepare a few shots of effective 
antitoxin. When Sorainya contracted 
the disease, Glarath rushed to her castle 
with the last tube of the serum, and 
saved her life. 

“But if the tube had been broken be- 
fore it reached her, the geodesic analyzer 
revealed, she would have died. Discov- 
ering that, I drove the Chronion back 
through the temple to the plague year. 
I carried aw^ay the tube.” 

Lanning nodded slowly. “I see!” he 
murmured, awed. “It was like the carry- 
ing away of the magnet, to destroy Jon- 
bar.” 



LEGION OF TIME 



133 



“Not quite,” pointed out Wil McLan. 
“The magnet was carried into the fu- 
ture. Its geodesics skipped over the vital 
node. Therefore Jonbar was immedi- 
ately blotted from the fifth-dimensional 
sequence. 

“But I carried the tube back into the 
past of Gyronchi. It was possible for 
its geodesics to make a loop and return 
to the node. Therefore — so long as the 
tube was intact — she was not essentially 
affected. But, when you broke the tube, 
the possibility of her survival was blot- 
ted out.” 

Lanning was staring at him, numbed 
with a bewildering paradox. “But if” 
■ — the incredulous question burst out — 
“if Sorainya died as a girl, what about 
Sorainya the queen? The woman that 
imprisoned you, and haunted me, and 
fought the legion. She didn’t exist!” 

The white, bleak face smiled a littler, 
at his bewilderment, and a thin, shak- 
ing hand touched his arm. 

“Remember,” McLan whispered 
softly, “we are dealing with probabili- 
ties alone. The new physics has banished 
absolute certainty from the world. Jon- 
bar and Gyronchi, and the two Sorain- 
yas, living and dead, are but conflicting 
branches of possibility, as yet unfixed 
by the inexorable progression of the 
fifth dimension. The crushing of the 
tube merely altered the probability fac- 
tors of Sorainya’s possible life.” 

A soft gleam of tears was in his hol- 
low eyes. They looked down at the lit- 
tle glistening heap of woven mail, the 
empty helmet and the golden sword. 

“But the queen Sorainya was real, to 
me,” he breathed. “And, to me, she is 
dead.” 

Lanning broke in with a final ques- 
tion: “These wounds? Were they 

made by a woman who didn’t exist 
in reality ?” 

“When they were made, her proba- 
bility did exist,” whispered Wil McLan. 
“And a lot of atomic power had been 
spent — through the temporal field — to 



match our probability to hers. You will 
notice, however, that they are disappear- 
ing now with a remarkable rapidity.” 

The bright eyes lifted to Lanning. 
“Just keep in mind, Denny, that the 
logical laws of causation are still rigid — 
but removed to a higher dimension. The 
absolute sequence of events, in the fifth 
dimension, is not parallel with time — 
although our three-dimensional minds 
commonly perceive it so. But that in- 
violable progression is the unalterable 
frame of all the universe.” 

His gnarled hand reached out to touch 
the rusty magnet in Lanning’s hand. 

“The march of that progression, 
higher than Time,” his hushed whisper 
ran on solemnly, “has now forever ob- 
literated Sorainya, the queen. The se- 
quence of events has not yet settled the 
fates of Jonbar and Gyronchi. But still 
the odds are all with Gyronchi.” 

The thin hand gripped Lanning’s arm. 
“The last play is near,” he breathed. 
“The hope — the probability — of Jonbar 
is all in you, Denny. And the outcome 
will soon be engraved forever in the 
fifth dimension.” 

He turned to grasp the Wheel of Time. 

XVII. 

WIL McLAN lived to nurse his fail- 
ing converters, although Lanning was 
stricken to see his pallor and his ebbing 
strength. He drove the Chronion, still 
ahead of pursuit in her shimmering 
abyss, back down her geodesic track 
until the dials stood at 5 :49 P. M., 
August 12, 1921. He raised his hand 
in a warning signal, and his whisper 
rasped down through the speaking tube. 
“Ready, Denny! They’ll be waiting to 
guard the spot.” 

Lanning was standing on the fore- 
deck, peering alertly into the flickering 
blue. As a desperate ruse that might 
win a precious moment, he had donned 
Sorainya’s armor. It fitted without dis- 
comfort. Her black plume waved above 



134 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 




The Warrior Queen of Gyronchi was gone! For an instant a grinning 
skeleton draped in crimson mail stood — then dropped to rotting dust! 



his head. One hand clutched her golden 
sword — the device in the hilt which 
made it also an electron gun was either 
broken or exhausted. The other moistly 
gripped the rusty magnet — which must 
be returned to the path of a barefoot 
boy, to save his namesake world. 

His weary brain, as he waited, dully 
pondered a last paradox : that, while the 
Chronion had outrun the black ship of 
Glarath in the long race backward 
through Time, no possible speed could 
bring her to the goal ahead of the other 



ship. He gripped the sword, at the 
warning from McLan, and his body 
went tense in the borrowed mail. 

And the Chronion flashed out of the 
blue again, into the lonely hush of that 
valley in the age-worn Ozarks. Every- 
thing was exactly as Lanning had seen 
it in the shining block of the clirono- 
scope: the idle, tattered boy, indiligenily 
driving the two lean cows down the 
rocky slope toward the dilapidated farm, 
with the gaunt, yellow dog roving be- 
side him. 




LEGION OF TIME 



135 



Ever}’thing — except that the great, 
squarish, black mass of the time ship 
from Gyronchi lay beside the trail, like 
a battleship aground. Glarath was a 
haggard, black pillar on his lofty deck. 
Ugly projectors of the gyrane’s blasting 
atomic energy beam frowned from their 
ports. And scores of the great ants had 
Iwen disembarked, to make a bristling, 
hideous wall alrout the spot where the 
magnet must l)e placed. 

Wliistling, the dawdling boy had come 
within twenty yards of the spot. But 
he gave no evidence that he saw either 
ship or monsters. One of the red-spot- 
ted cows, ahead, plodded calmly through 
a giant black ant. 

Back to Banning, already tensed to 
leap from the deck, came a whispered 
explanation of McLan. “No, the boy 
John Barr won’t be aware of us at all 
— unless we should turn the temporal 
field upon him. For his life i^ already 
almost completely fixed by the advanc- 
ing progression in the fifth dimension. 
In terms of his experience, we are no 
more than phantoms of probability. 
Travelers backward into time can affect 
the past only at carefully selected nodes, 
and then only at the expense of the ter- 
rific power required to deflect the proba- 
bility-inertia of the whole continuum. 
It required the utmost power of the 
gyrane merely to lift the magnet from 
John Barr’s path.” 

Gripping the magnet and the sword, 
Lanning flung himself to the ground. 
He stumbled on a rock, fell to his knees, 
staggered back to his feet, and ran des- 
perately toward the great black ship and 
the horde of ants ahead of the loitering 
boy. 

He waved the golden sword, as he 
ran, in Sorainya’s familiar gesture. And 
Glarath, on his bridge, waved a black- 
swathed arm to answer — and then, as 
Lanning’s tired feet tripped again, he 
went rigid with alarm. 

For Lanning’s weary gait lacked all 
Sorainya’s grace, and the black priest 



marked the change. A great hoarse 
voice croaked a command. The wall of 
giant ants came to attention, bristling 
with the crimson and yellow of arms. 
And a thick, black tube swung down in 
its port. 

THE FIRST BL-^ST of the atomic 
ray struck a rock beside Lanning. It 
exploded in a blaze of white. Molten 
stone spattered the red mail. A hot 
fragment slapped his cheek with white 
agony, and blinded him with the smoke 
of his own flesh burning. 

The boy, meantime, had already 
walked into the unsuspected ranks of 
ants. A cold desp>eration clutched at 
Lanning’s heart. In a few moments 
more, John Barr would have picked up 
the pebble instead of the magnet, and 
the fate of two worlds settled forever 
— unless he broke through. 

Strangled wtih bitter white smoke, 
Lanning caught a sobbing breath, and 
sprinted. Twin blinding lances of . the 
gyrane’s fire fused the soil to a smok- 
ing pool of lava, close behind him. He 
was now safe beneath their maximum 
depression. But the ants were waiting 
ahead. 

Thick crimson guns were leveled, and 
a volley battered Lanning. The bullets 
failed to pierce the woven mail. But 
the impacts were bruising, staggering 
blows. And one raked his unprotected 
jaw and neck, beneath the helmet. A 
sickening pain loosened his muscles. 
Red gouts splashed down on the crim- 
son mail. He gritted broken teeth, spat 
fragments and blood, stumbled on. 

Yellow axes flamed above the ebon 
ranks. He whirled the yellow sword, 
and leapt to meet them. For an jnstant 
he thought the ants would yield, in awe 
of Sorainya’s very armor. But Glarath 
croaked another command from above, 
and they fell upon him furiously. 

Golden blades ripped and battered at 
his mail. He drove Sorainya’s sword 
into an armored, jet thorax.* And a 



136 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



clubbed red gun smashed against his 
extended arm. The bone gave with a 
brittle snap, and his arm fell useless in 
the sleeve of mail. He clutched the pre- 
cious magnet close to his body, and leapt 
ahead. 

Blows rained on him. The helmet was 
battered stunningly against his head. A 
cleaving axe half severed his neck, at 
the juncture of helmet and mail, and hot 
blood gushed down in the shirt. 

Yet some old terror of their queen 
repelled the ants from any actual con- 
tact with her mail. So Lanning, even 
wounded and beaten down, pushed 
through their close ranks to the hollow 
square they guarded. 

He saw the ragged boy John Barr 
stroll unawares through the farther 
ranks, the hungry dog at his heels. He 
saw the gleam of the pebble, the tri- 
angular print where the magnet had 
lain, but two paces from the boy. An- 
other second 

But he was falling. His strength was 
rushing out in the foaming red stream 
from his neck. Another merciless blow 
smashed his shoulder, numbed the arm 
that held the magnet, crushed him down. 

Lanning's eyes were dim with weak- 
ness and pain. But, as he fell, he saw 
beside him, or thought he did, a splen- 
did figure. The grave, majestic head 
and mighty shoulders of a towering man 
rose above a mantle of shimmering opal- 
escence. Deep and wide and clear, the 
eyes of the stranger struck Lanning with 
a power that was unforgettable, supernal. 

A bare, magnificent arm reached out 
of the flaming veil and touched his shoul- 
der. That cold touch tensed Lanning’s 
bo<iy with a queer, shocking force. A 
deep, hushed voice said : “Courage, 

Denny Lanning! For mankind.” 

AND THE STRANGER was gone. 
Numbed with awe, Lanning knew that 
he had been one of the dynon, the fur- 
ther heirs of Jonbar. 

His hand had given fanning a mys- 



terious new strength, cleared the red 
mist from his head. And the visitation 
meant, Lanning knew dimly, that Jonbar 
still was — possible! 

Glarath had bellowed another com- 
mand, and an avalanche of ants was 
falling on his body. And the aimless 
boy was already stooping for the pebble. 

Lanning hurled himself forward, his 
good arm thrust out with the magnet. 
A yellow blade of pain slashed down at 
his sleeve. The horde crushed him to 
the earth. But the magnet, flung with 
the last effort of his fingers, dropped 
into the triangular print. 

A bright curiosity — the very light of 
science — was born in the eyes of the 
stooping boy. His inquisitive fingers 
closed on the V of steel. And then the 
warrior ants, piling themselves upon 
Lanning’s body, were suddenly gone. 

The black ship flickered like a wing 
of shadow, and vanished. 

John Barr picked up the magnet, 
wonderingly discovered a clinging rusty 
nail that it had drawn from the dust, 
and went on down the slope, driving his 
two spotted cows through the imseen 
hull of the Chronion. 

Dennis Lanning was left alone beside 
the trail. He knew that he was dying. 
But the slowing, fading throb of his 
pain was a triumphant drum. For he 
knew that Jonbar had won. 

His failing eyes looked down toward 
the Chronion. He wondered if Wil Mc- 
Lan had been hurt again, in the battle. 
Puzzled dimly, he saw the little time 
ship flicker also, and vanish, .^nd he 
lay quite alone in the sunset on the slope 
of that Ozark hill. 

XVIII. 

IT WAS a dream, all a delirium of 
death, a thing that could not have been. 
But Lethonee had been standing beside 
him. Tall and straight in the same sim- 
ple white, with the great splendid jewel 
of the chronotron held in Her hand*. 



LEGION OF TIME 



137 



Her white face, under her coronal of 
shimmering mahogany, was beautiful, 
and in her violet eyes shone a tender, 
joyous light. 

“I thank you, Denny Lanning!” her 
breaking silver voice had whispered. ‘T 
bring you the thanks of all Jonbar, for 
a thing that no other could have done.” 
Lanning struggled against a terrible 
inertia, to speak to her. But all his 
desperate effort could utter not even 
one word of his love. For he was held 
in the leaden hands of death. 

But he saw the violet eyes turn soft 
with tears, and he heard her trembling 
breath, “Live, Denny Lanning! Get 
well again. And come back to me 1” 
Her full lips quivered, and the tears 
sprang glistening into the jewel’s soft 
glow. “For I’ll be waiting, Denny Lan- 
ning, whenever you come to Jonbar.” 
He fought again the rigor of death, 
but in vain. And darkness blotted out 
the jewel and Lethonee. 

As if all his life swirled in brief re- 
view, through the last hallucination of 
death, he thought that he was once again 
lying in a clean bed in the little green- 
walled hospital aboard the Chronion. 
The brisk, efficient surgeons of Jonbar 
had been attending him for a long time 
in the dim, drowsy intervals of sleep. 
The wondrous agencies of the dynat, 
he dreamed, had made his body whole 
again. 

It had to be a dream. For Willie 
Rand was sitting up on the opposite bed, 
grinning at him with clear, seeing eyes. 
Willie Rand who had been slain — blind 
and alone — in that fantastic, hopeless 
charge against the ants before Sorainya’s 
diamond throne. He blew an expand- 
ing silver ring, watched it happily. 
“Howdy, Cap’n Lanning. Smoke?” 
Numbed with bewilderment, Lanning 
reached automatically to catch the ciga- 
rette he tossed. There was no pain in 
the arm that the great ant’s clubbed gun 
had broken. He' tried the fingers again. 



incredulously, and stared across at Wil- 
lie Rand. 

“What’s happened ?” he demanded. “I 
thought you were — were killed 1 And I 
was cashing out ” 

Rand exhaled a white cloud, grinned 
through it. 

“That’s right, cap’n,” he drawled 
cheerfully. “I reckon we’ve all died 
twice. And I reckon we’ll all get an- 
other stack of chips — all but poor Cap’n 
McLan.” 

“But ?” gasped Lanning. “How 



“Well, cap’n, you see ” 

But then there was a clatter on the 
stair. Barry Halloran and bull-like 
Emil Schorn came down from the deck, 
carrying a stretcher. It bore a sheeted 
form, and behind came two of the sur- 
geons from Jonbar, in their tunics of 
gray and green. A third rolled in a 
table of instruments. They laid the 
bandaged figure gently on a bed. Lan- 
ning caught the gleam of a hypodermic, 
glimpsed the little shining needles that 
gave off a healing radiation of the dynat. 

“That’s the little limey, Duffy Clark,” 
Willie Rand was informing him. “He 
was the last one. He was put over- 
board on the flight back from Gyronchi, 
and sort of lost in probability and time. 
Took days to untangle the geo — geo- 
desics. But they found him! He was 
burned with the gyrane — the same 
cussed ray that put my lights out. But 
I reckon that dynat will tune him up in 
good shape again, now that Gyronchi 
never was.” 

LANNING was sitting up on the side 
of his bed, a little shakily at first. And 
now Barry Halloran discovered him. 
The rugged, freckled face lit with a joy- 
ous grin. He strode swiftly to grip Tan- 
ning’s hand. 

“Denny, old man! I knew you’d be 
coming round !” 

“Tell me, Barry!” Lanning clung to 
the powerful hand. He shuddered to 



138 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



a sud<len burning agony of hope. “How 
(lid all this happen? And can we — 
can we ?” He gulped, and his des- 

perate eyes searched Barry’s broad, 
cheerful face. “Can we go liack to 
Jon bar?’’ 

A shadow of pain blotted the smile 
from Barry Halloran. 

“Wil did it.” His voice was deep 
with a sober regret. “Wil McLan. The 
last thing he did. After you had settled 
with Gyronchi, he left you and drove 
the Chronwn back down to Jonbar. He 
was dead when he got there — dead be- 
yond the power of the dynat to revive 
him. For even it can’t make men im- 
mortal, not until the dyttoit come. 

“They are building a tomb for Wil, 
there in Jonbar.” 

The big tackle looked away for a 
moment, with a new huskiness in his 
voice. 

“Wil knew he was going down,” he 
went on suddenly. “He had rigged an 
automatic switch to stop the Chronion 
when it came to Jonbar, and Lethonee’s 
time. And she sent the doctors back 
with it, to haul us out of Time and 
probability, and resurrect us with the 
dynat, as they did before. Quite a hunt, 
I gather, through the snarl of broken 
geodesics.” 

“Lethonee?” whispered Canning, ur- 
gently. 

“Ach!” It was a Ijellow greeting from 
Emil Schorn. He smashed Canning’s 
fingers in a great ham of a hand. “Ja, 
Herr Canning! Jonbar is der Valhalla 
der old sagas promised us, where men 
fight and die and are restored to fight 
again. Und Sorainya ” 

An awed admiration deepened the 
bellow. 

“Der red queen of war! Ach, So- 
rainya was a Valkyrie — one of Odin’s 
maids of battle, terrible and beautiful. 
There will be none like her in Jonbar, 
nein! Though the maiden waiting for 
you there is fair enough, and kind.” 

“Jonbar? Are we going back?” 



“Ach, ja! Our own time is closed to 
us forever — unless we choose to perish 
there. We exiles of time, ja. But der 
white girl has promised to make a place 
for us in Jonbar. And der herr doktors 
with us say that it need not be an idle, 
u.seless one. For mankind, marching for- 
ward under der dynat, will meet new 
enemies. We may even fight again, for 
Jonbar.” A stern eager blue flashed in 
his eyes. “Ach, heil, Valhalla!” 

Canning was standing on the deck, 
aglow once more with the mystical 
strength and elation that came from the 
dynat, when the Chronion slipped again 
from her blue shimmering bourn into 
the clear sky over Jonbar. 

Genial sunlight of a calm spring morn- 
ing burned dazzling upon lofty, silver 
pylons. Gay-clad multitudes thronged 
the vast green parks and broad viaducts 
and the terrace gardens of the towers, 
eager to greet the Chronion. 

The battered little time ship drifted 
down slowly above them. The men out 
of the past, radiantly fit, but still — as 
Barry Halloran commented — a tramp- 
ish-looking lot in their ragged, faded, 
oddly assorted uniforms, were leaning 
on the rail, waving in answer to the 
welcome of Jonbar. 

ACC THE CITTCE Cegion alive 
again : Schorn and Rand and Duffy 
Clark, swarthy Cresto and grave-eyed 
Barinin and grinning t.ao Meng Shan. 
The two lean Canadians, Isaac and 
Israel Enders, standing silently side by 
side. Tall Courtney- Pharr, and grim 
Von .\rneth, and Barry Halloran. And 
dapper little Jean Querard, perched per- 
ilously on the rail, making a speech of 
thanks into space. 

But it was one of the scientists from 
Jonbar who held the bright wheel un- 
der the dome. And the Chronwn floated 
over a slim, new shaft of pure white 
that soared alone from a wooded hill. 
Standing on its crown,' Ixjth arms reach- 



LEGION OF TIME 



139 



ing skyward, Lanning saw the statue in 
hard white metal of a small weary man 
— W'il McLan. 

All the legion saluted, as they passed, 
and a silence stilled the humming of 
the multitudes below. 

A wide valve had opened ahead ih 
the argent wall of a familiar tower on a 
hill. The Chronion nosed through, 
dropped gently upon the same platform 
in the great hangar, where a smiling 
crowd was waiting, cheering noisily. 

Jean Querard strutted and inflated his 
chest. Teetering on the rail, he waved 
for silence. 

“C’est bon,” his high voice began. 
"C’est tres bon ” 

Trembling with a still incredulous 
eagerness, Lanning leapt past him, over 
the rail. He pushed his way through 
the crowd, and found the elevator. It 
flung him upward, and he stepped out 
into that same terrace garden of his 
most poignant memory. 

Amid its fragrant, white-fltfwered 
greenery, he paused for a moment to 
catch his breath. His eyes fell to the 
wide, verdant parklands that spread 
smiling to the placid river, a full mile 
l)eneath. And he saw a thing that probed 
his heart with a queer little needle of 
pain. 

For this great river, he saw, was the 
same river that had curved through 
Gyronchi ! Great pylons soared where 
miserable villages had stood. The lofty 
monument to Wil McLan, he saw, leapt 
u]) from the very hill that had been 
crowned by the squat, black temple of 
the gyrane, beneath the awful funnel of 
black. 

But where was the other hill, where 
Sorainya’s red citadel had been? 

His breath shuddered and caught, 
when he saw that it was this same hill. 



that now bore the tower of Lethonee. 
His hands gripped hard on the railing, 
and he looked down at the little table 
where he had dined with Lethonee, on 
the dreadful night of Jonbar’s dissolu- 
tion. 

And Sorainya, glorious on her golden 
shell, rose again to mock him, as she 
had done that night. Tears dimmed his 
eyes, and a haunting, sudden ache 
gripped his pausing heart. . 

Oh, jair Sorainya — slain! 

A light step raced through the sliding 
door behind the shrubs, and a breathless 
voice panted his name, joyously. Lan- 
ning looked up, slowly. And a numb- 
ing wonder shook him. 

“Denny Lanning!” 

Lethonee came running toward him, 
through the flowers. Her violet eyes 
were bright with tears, and her face was 
a white smile of incredulous delight. 
Lanning turned shuddering to meet her, 
speechless. 

For the golden voice of the warrior 
queen had mocked him in her cry. And 
the ghost of Sorainya’s glance glinted 
green in her shining eyes. She had 
even donned a close-fitting velvet gown 
of shimmering crimson, tliat shone like 
Sorainya’s mail. 

She came into his open, trembling 
arms. 

“Denny ” she sobbed happily. 

“At last we are — one.” 

The world was spinning. This same 
hill had borne Sorainya’s citadel. Jon- 
bar and Gyronchi — conflicting possible 
worlds, stemming from the same begin- 
ning — were now fused into the same 
reality. Lethonee and Sorainya, also 

? Eagerly, he drew her against his 

racing heart. And he murmured, hap- 
pily — 

“One!” 



THE END 



140 




Hotel Cosmos 

By Raymond Z. Gallun 

A political assassin loose — in a hotel harboring savage 
race-hatred of a dozen alien, antagonistic worlds! 




The proxy-robots darted angrily to- 
ward him. Methodically, angrily, 
“Easy Coin’" Ledrack shot them 
down. Somehow, somewhere. Hell 
was loose in Hotel Cosmos tonight! 



V IEWED casually, the building 
wasn’t very remarkable. Just a 
beautiful, skyward sweep of glit- 
tering chromium, like many of the other 
structures of Twenty-third Century Chi- 
cago. 

It wasn’t till you discovered its na- 
ture that you received a kind of icy, 
majesttc thrill. Its name, flashing in 



brilliant lights at night, was Hotel Cos- 
mos. Within its walls lay a haven for 
every kind of intelligent extra-terrestrial 
creature who dared to cross the inter- 
planetary and interstellar distances to 
the alien Earth. Few of those beings 
could have survived raw Earthly con- 
ditions for much more than a minute. 

Old Dave Ledrack, known as “Easy 



142 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Coin’ ” to his friends, paced quiet, 
green-lit corridors with the silence of a 
passing ghost. His round, red face re- 
vealed nothing of his thoughts ; his foot- 
steps on the thick carpets were steady 
and unhurried. His heart, beneath his 
neat, white uniform, betrayed not a trace 
of quickening in its beat, even though 
there now existed around him excep- 
tional potentialities for trouble. 

There always were potentialities for 
trouble here in Hotel Cosmos, as old 
Dave knew from eighteen years of in- 
timate experience. When you banded 
together in one building beings of hun- 
dreds of diverse forms and backgrounds, 
and of as many widely separated con- 
ceptions of what is just and what is not, 
automatically you formed a brew that 
had most of the ticklish danger of a 
charge of hyp>er-dynamium explosive. 

And now, tonight, circumstances held 
a much greater threat than was usual. 
This was the beginning of the great 
Galactic Conference, a gathering dedi- 
cated to the readjustment of thousands 
of petty and major differences accumu- 
lated over many years of commercial 
relations. 

It would not have been surprising, 
then, had Dave Ledrack felt cold twinges 
of uneasiness lancing through him. But 
his remarkable coolness was proved by 
the fact that such was not the case. 
Easy Coin’ Ledrack’s placidity re- 
mained unruffled. With possible hell 
and damnation all around him, he never 
turned a hair. Perhaps he only dreamed, 
half amusedly, of some of the fantastic 
upsets of his interesting career. But let 
it not be said that he was not alert, too. 

The aspect of all the corridors of the 
building was much the same. Their 
floors were heavily carpeted; the walls, 
of tooled metal, were dully shining in 
the subdued green glow of the lights. 
Their uniformity was broken at regular 
intervals by airtight circular doors, 
which resembled in a somewhat less 
massive form the portals of bank vaults. 



Each door displa}'ed a number, wrought 
in black onyx inlay, and mounted on 
each were several small valve-wheels 
for regulating and adjusting the tem- 
perature, pressure, and gaseous compo- 
sition of the atmosphere of the room 
within. The twilight was eerie and soft, 
and the sweeping sameness of the halls 
suggested the interminable distances 
seen in opposed mirrors. 

SUCH WAS the interior of Hotel 
Cosmos, which was operated and laid 
out in a manner not markedly dissimi- 
lar from that of any hotel for humans. 
But the fact that it was meant for beings 
far from human, even in an intellectual 
sense, made one think of the vast gulfs 
between the stars ; of dark steamy 
worlds, where slimy horrors sported and 
thought and toiled; of great, stark, un- 
Earthly mountains and deserts ; and of a 
thousand other fearful and near unim- 
aginable things. 

Old Dave, however, never allowed his 
imagination to trouble him. 

Concealed in his right ear was a tiny 
etherphone receiver, part of the etjuip- 
ment of every member of the Terrestrial 
Guard Police, to which he Ijelonged as 
a requirement of his position as Chief 
of Watch in the greatest other-world 
hostelry in the Americas. 

He listened now, to low’, ticking mes- 
sages, presented in intricate code, as he 
walked on through the quiet Martian 
section of the hotel. 

“Space Liner Ardis coming in from 
Planet Five of Antares. Landing at 
10:19 p. m. in fourth cradle of Civic 
Space Docks. 4-2-5 on board ! 4-2-5 
on board! Caution! Caution! This 
is Holman signalling. Attention, Led- 
rack! Attention, Ledrack ” 

Old Dave grinned with faint benig- 
nance. John Holman, his capable, con- 
scientious little boss, was worrying 
again, he could tell, from the tone of the 
message. But of course Holman had 
good and sufficient reason. 



HOTEL COSMOS 



143 



4-2-5 — the code number assigned by 
the Space Travel Bureau to a visiting 
entity who must otherwise remain for- 
ever nameless on Earth. Dave had been 
warned before of 4-2-S’s possible sinis- 
ter purposes. 

4-2-5 was reputed to be the greatest 
trouble-maker, and one of the most bril- 
liant scientists, in the galaxy. But never 
once had his cold, inhuman cleverness 
|)crmitted his numerous suspected dep- 
redations against law and order to be 
definitely pinned ' on him. Hence, he 
could not legally be denied entrance to 
Earth. 

Planet Five of Antares was a hellish, 
hot, reeking place with an atmosphere 
so lethal that one breath of it would 
swiftly have killed a man. But 4-2-5 ’s 
kind were not men. Their flesh was 
of a porous, silicous composition, breath- 
ing and living in a different way than 
any flesh native to Earth. Hideous, 
hard-shelled things, 4-2-5’s kind crept 
through the shadowy jungles of their 
world, and dwelt there in a strange lux- 
ury, incomprehensible to a man in its 
repellent needs, but evidently satisfac- 
tory to them. 

Slavery, piracy, and the brutal con- 
quest of several neighboring planets of 
Atitares had been attributed to them. 
But at their vast distance from Earth, 
all this information was vague indeed 
to the terrestrial populace in general. 
The one great threat to the successful 
continuation of 4-2-5’s various wrongs 
was the stupendous fleet of the .Inter- 
stellar League, headed by its Earthly 
unit. Earth had extensive commercial 
interests on Planet Seven, interests 
which she meant to protect if she could ; 
and Seven was now dangerously in- 
volved with 4-2-5’s purposes. 

Old Dave Ledrack glanced at his 
wrisj,watch. 10:17 p. m. In another 
tw^l^inutes the Ardis, bearing its sin- 
ister passenger, would settle gently on 
it# flaming retard-jets, and into its cra- 
l^e. There would be brief customs in- 

4 



spections. By eleven o’clock the black 
transfer cars would come, bringing new 
guests for Hotel Cosmos. Among them 
4-2-5. 

D.WE THRUST his right hand 
within his coat, contacting a tiny trans- 
mitting instrument strapped under his 
armpit. Rapidly and silently he worked 
its key, coding out a brief message ac- 
knowledging Chief Holman’s warning to 
be on his toes. 

After that there was nothing for Dave 
to do but pace his beat and wait. He 
passed several times through the ex- 
tensive and standardized Martian and 
Venusian sections of the hostelry, ignor- 
ing, during this interval, except for one 
routine tour of inspection, the rows of 
more adaptable cubicles, the interiors of 
which could be adjusted and conditioned 
to suit almost any form of living thing. 
Dave paused briefly beside first the 
Venusian and then the Martian recrea- 
tion halt. The interiors of both, sealed 
away from all intrusion of Earth’s at- 
mosphere, were screened with frosted 
glass. But from them there issued, faint 
and disquieting, odd vocal noises remi- 
niscent humorously of those of a zoo, 
but suggestive also of dim, nameless hor- 
ror to the uninitiated. 

Promptly at eleven o’clock the casket- 
like transfer refuges, used while mov- 
ing the visiting entities from ship to 
hostelry, were wheeled out of the ele- 
vators and along the corridors to the 
entrances of the various rooms, each of 
the latter having been specially prepared 
for the individual for which it was re- 
served. Each refuge was supported on 
a bierlike carriage, and was tagged with 
the number of the occupant it protected 
from the hostile environmental condi- 
tions of Earth. 

Dave Ledrack found the refuge 
marked 4-2-5, Planet Five, Antares, 
without more than what must seem a 
casual glance. Guardedly he watched 



144 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



while white-dad attendants lifted it 
through a circular door and into the air 
lock of the cubicle selected for its oc- 
cupant. Now the door was closed and 
sealed behind it. There had been no 
sound or other evidence to betray the 
nature of the unhuman monster it con- 
cealed. But now 4-2-5 was free to 
emerge within the privacy of his care- 
fully conditioned quarters, and proceed 
with whatever business was his. 

Visitors from across space seldom 
emerged from their rooms, other than to 
go to the recreation halls, if such were 
provided for the particular type of crea- 
ture they happened to be. The most im- 
portant reason was simply that direct 
exposure to Earthly conditions usually 
held a promise of swift death. Instead, 
they accomplished their contacts with 
the terrestrial environment by means of 
radio-controlled proxy robots, usually 
provided by the hostelry itself. Mar- 
tians and Venusians came to Earth in 
sufficient numbers to warrant the ex- 
istence of recreation halls for them, 
which they reached by means of condi- 
tioned passages traversing the rear of 
their cubicles. But 4-2-5 was the only 
one of his kind now on Earth, and the 
presence of others was infrequent. 
Hence there was no place for him to 
go for recreation ; he must remain con- 
fined to his quarters. 

NOW TH.^T he was delivered to 
his room without slip-up, Dave had no 
further duty where he was concerned, 
except to keep careful but unobtrusive 
watch. Dave had no right or desire 
to pry. 

.^fter that, nothing special happened * 
for about an hour. Nothing special, 
that is, that you could really put your 
finger on and say, “Here’s trouble.” 
But abruptly — so abruptly that the be- 
ginning of the phenomenon might have 
been timed almost to the second, had he 
glanced at his watch — old Dave felt a 
wave of definite uneasiness sweep over 



him. It was about half after eleven 
o’clock then. 

Dave Ledrack had thought himself to 
be one person without nerves; it was 
annoying now to find himself the victim 
of an unfathomable worry. He had no 
faith in the idea that anyone could really 
sense danger approaching, unless there 
was tangible though perhaps not easily 
discoverable evidence of it working on 
him from some quarter. 

Qiecking up on himself, Dave found 
no such evidence, except the brooding 
quiet of green-lit halls, which was quite 
the normal thing here. The youthful 
attendants he met in his rounds looked 
strained and worried. When he greeted 
them they returned only surly no<Is, 
heavy with the spell of alien things. But 
Dave passed this off as something to l)e 
expected. And so, quite in line with 
his nickname of Easy Coin’, he shrugged 
and grinned deprecatingly. 

But putting his mind at rest wasn’t 
quite as easy as that. Morbid suspi- 
cions began to creep into his thoughts 
— suspicions of a quality which he had 
never experienced before in his life. 
Meanwhile his imagination was keyed 
up to cold, nerve-tensing vividness. In 
spite of his natural inclination to cool- 
ness, he began to remind himself that 
all around him here were a hundred 
strange hells, encompassed by those lit- 
tle airtight rooms where no man could 
live, and where, transiently, dwelt bril- 
liant entities who would probably much 
sooner see the human race wiped out 
than not. Devils — liideous devils! 

The \’enusians, for instance. Pres- 
sure, moisture, heat! They spent more 
than half of their lives in the water. 
And they looked quite a bit like those 
abhorrent Earthly marine animals — 
sting rays. Dark, mud-hued hide ; long, 
rigid tails ; slow-moving, winglik^ fins 
that worked with a kind of horrible, spi- 
ralling grace, like the blades of an old- 
time seagoing ship’s screw. And hor- 



HOTEL COSMOS 



145 



rible, sullen, expressionless eyes, im- 
bedded in deep folds of loose skin! 

But unlike the rays, the Venusians 
had four short legs resembling those of 
a turtle, by means of which they could 
crawl out of the shallowly sunken cities 
of their planet and onto the dry land 
where most of the machines which their 
science had provided for them were lo- 
cated. And they had tapered, flexible 
organs around their mouths, serving 
them in lieu of hands. 

The Martians. Gray, spongy mon- 
strosities with great brooding orbs. 
They were even more repellent than 
the folk of Venus. As for those other 
beings from other solar systems — 4-2-5 
and his kind, for instance — there was 
something too nameless about them for 
a man ever to grasp. 4-2-5’s people 
breathed corrosive fluorine instead of 
oxygen, for one thing, and deadly cy- 
anogen gas was a normal part of the 
atmosphere of the world they inhabited ! 

DAVE REALIZED now, more 
clearly than ever before, that within a 
few yards of him in every direction 
were horrors eternally beyond the ken 
of humankind, yet deeply involved in 
the same mesh of a vast space commerce. 

Dave was pacing through the Martian 
section, when a low buzz sounded be- 
hind him. He did not look back, for 
he knew that the sound originated from 
a small proxy robot. 

But when the mechanism began to 
circle his head excitedly, the situation 
was different at once. The robot was 
a little flying sphere, about eight inches 
in diameter. It had a single mechanical 
eye, and one flexible metal arm. More 
than that, besides its propulsion, radio 
direction, and auditory receiver units, 
it possessed only the capacity to speak, 
as its unseen guide, hidden in one of the 
rooms here, directed. 

It spoke now in clear, clipped Eng- 
lish, originating in the manipulation of 
some artificial device, rather than by 



means of living vocal cords. Few extra- 
terrestrial creatures possessed the natu- 
ral capacity to reproduce the sounds of 
human speech. 

“There is death,” it said quietly. “I 
am X-4-3, Conference Ambassador from 
Mars. The Venusians, I think, remem- 
ber the old war, in which our ether fleets 
destroyed theirs. Someone has tried to 
destroy me. The door of my quarters. 
Someone attempted to burn through the 
metal. Had I not heard a sound, and 
frightened the intruder away, heavy 
Earth-air would have rushed in and 
smothered me!” 

Something maddening and irritable 
and mysterious in Dave’s nerves, made 
him want to call the entity controlling 
this proxy robot a fool. But instead he 
enquired politely: “Room 18, isn’t it?” 

It wasn’t far to room 18. Dave hur- 
ried there, with the proxy gliding along 
beside him. In the metal door was a 
deep, still-glowing scar, made evidently 
by a small atom-blast. 

Ledrack nodded with unaccustomed 
grimness. “Withdraw your robot,” he 
ordered. “Ever)n;hing will be taken 
care of.” 

“It is best that such should be true. 
Earth creature,” the voice returned, with 
dark, murderous insults lurking just be- 
neath its placid, artificial tones. 

Dave saw the airtight outer valve of 
the room’s air lock open to receive the 
proxy. Beyond, through the transpar- 
ent inner valve, he glimpsed the dim-lit, 
metal room, where the great Martian 
ambassador himself sprawled — an ab- 
horrent, spongy elipsoid — on a rug of 
dark, heavy fabric. But when the auto- 
matically operated door closed, no op- 
portunity was given Dave to report the 
attempted assassination, either to Karen, 
manager of the hotel, or to Holman, 
chief of the Terrestrial Guard Police. 

Echoing from down the hall was a 
jarring concussion, followed by a rag- 
ged, slurring scream. 



146 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



DAVE RUSHED toward the source 
of the disturbance at once. It was just 
beyond the end of the Martian section, 
where there were great sliding doors, 
and where the Venusian section began. 
And here a part of the metal wall was 
blasted out. There was a sickening 
stench of fetid Venus jungles in the air, 
a few fragments of a Venusian bath tank 
scattered on the floor, and a torn body, 
smeared with thick, dark blood and now 
bereft of life. R-2-3, Venus ambassa- 
dor, destroyed! 

Dave, ordinarily so cool, felt a sharp 
wave of fury at that moment. He 
wanted to hurt someone — he didn’t know 
whom — since the identity of the mur- 
derer was hidden from him. 

What had thus far occurred, how- 
ever, was only the beginning of pande- 
monium, which now seemed to break all 
around him. From distant and near in 
the great building he heard human 
shouts of anger and terror, mixing with 
the buzz of proxy robots, and the occa- 
sional low hiss of blast weapons. The 
effects of what was taking place could 
be unguessably far-reaching. Many of 
the entities now in the hotel were galac- 
tic celebrities. Titanic war hovered 
darkly in the background, as Dave real- 
ized at once. And since this was Earth, 
his people would be held largely respon- 
sible. 

In his little etherphone, Karen, the 
manager, was shouting wildly for Dave, 
while at the same time police code was 
coming in, trilling Holman’s message of 
waniing: “Calling Ledrack! Calling 

Ledrack! Karen reports trouble! In- 
vestigate at once ! We are coming ! We 
are coming!’’ 

Dave reached into his coat to tap out 
a brief phrase of acknowledgment. Fur- 
ther than that he didn’t know quite what 
to do. A screaming fury was in his 
nerves — something that was like mur- 
der madness, urging him to kill and kill 
and kill! But no time was given him 



now to think out possible causes for this 
treacherous phenomenon. 

He was cool enough to remember his 
duty first. As an officer of the law it 
was his duty to attack trouble and try 
— at least try — to control it ! 

There seemed to be many scenes of 
trouble here in the hostelry, but the 
one far down the corridor of the Venu- 
sian section was the nearest. Four 
white-clad youths were down, scream- 
ing on the floor, while proxy rolx)ts 
wheeled and darted over them like angry 
hornets of gigantic size. No weapons 
were in evidence here, but the proxies, 
by hurling their own bulks swiftly, could 
strike furious blows against their hu- 
man adversaries. 

Old Dave — Easy Coin’ — Ledrack, 
rushed forward, the pistollike device in 
his hand flaming vengefully. Ragged 
bolts of energy lanced from it blindingly, 
and with each blast a proxy robot clat- 
tered to the floor in glowing, superheated 
fragments. At least Dave couldn’t cause 
any real inter-world complications here. 
These were only robots. The entities 
that ruled them couldn’t be injured by 
their destruction. 

The voices of the robots — all of them 
doubtless the proxies of Venusians — ■ 
made no human sounds, but only hissed 
a kind of animal defiance, born of a 
thousand real and fancied wrongs of a 
petty nature inflicted in the past by 
Earthmen. Revenge now! Revenge! 
The remaining proxies hurtled toward 
Dave, like wickedly glittering projectiles, 
their camera eyes agleam, their metal 
arms extended like spearpoints. 

The four youths who were in the em- 
ploy of Hotel Cosmos, and who had been 
knocked over, were now scrambling 
weakly to their feet, their faces and 
shoulders streaming blood. But they 
were not too stunned to scream curses 
and exhortations, their faces twisted 
with fury and terror. 

“Get ’em, Dave ! Get ’em ! Dirty, 

stinking Venus folk We ought to 



HOTEL COSMOS 



147 



open all the valves of the rooms, and 
let ’em die in the Earth air ! And those 
Martians, too! Damn ’em! And all 
the rest! By glory, let’s do it! Let’s! 
We will ” 

Dave, armed as was no one else pres- 
ent, smashed the last of the small at- 
tacking mechanisms with a series of daz- 
zling bursts of energy. But matters were 
getting rapidly out of hand. 

Mingled with the other sounds of dis- 
order and chaos, throbbing and dinning 
throughout the hostelry, now came omi- 
nous hisses. Attendants were opening 
valves — putting a madness bom of mur- 
der impulses into effect — preparing to 
drown alien beings in Earth atmosphere 
unsuited to their needs. 

And Dave, gripped by the same 
strange power, found himself wanting to 
take part in the massacre too. Those 
filthy, unhuman demons! Down with 
them ! Down ! Easy Coin’ Ledrack 
seemed to have been transformed. 

BUT ALWAYS some part of him 
must remain the same. Tact! Never 
before had he needed the capacity for 
soothing speech so much as now ! War 
— sweeping the galaxy — wiping out 
races — shattering planets themselves! 

“For Heaven’s sake, hold yourselves 
down, fellas!’’ he shouted to the attend- 
ants. “Put those valves back where they 
l>elong! Don’t you understand what it’ll 
mean if all this goes on — if a lot of 
these ambassadors and so forth are 
killed — especially on Earth and by 
Earthmen ? We’re up against something 
— some kind of science, it must be — 
that’s stirring up our blood this way. 
And it’s the same with the other crea- 
tures in the hotel. If you want to prove 
that you’re real men, here’s your chance ! 
Get control of yourselvbs ! And go 
around and see what you can do about 
quieting poor chumps who are going off 
the deep end. Remember there are 
cruisers and battleships from other plan- 

AST— 10 



ets out there at the spaceport, and that 
real hell can blow up at any minute !’’ 

The attendants looked at him sheep- 
ishly then, and he knew that his words 
had had at least some effect. But he 
could not linger here longer. And so 
he hurried on along the corridors, beat- 
ing down proxy robots, exhorting his 
own kind to caution, each time with 
waning success. His own nerves, ex- 
cited and irritated in some hidden man- 
ner, and in a progressive way, seemed 
to be approaching the breaking point. 

A terrific hubbub issued from the 
Martian recreation hall. Somehow 
Dave got into a lightweight vacuum 
armor, secured from an emergency sup- 
ply closet. Thus attired, he traversed 
the air lock which led into what was, in 
effect, a fragment of old Mars. Low, 
sweeping arches, Cyclopean in the dim 
illumination of radioactive lamps sup- 
ported in quaintly wrought sconces. 
Deep, zigzag carvings in gray stone. 
Dave knew that the air now around him 
was cold and dry and thin, but protected 
as he was he could not feel this differ- 
ence. 

His attention could scarcely have been 
directed toward such otherwise-intrigu- 
ing details now. With sluggish haste, 
spongy, ovoid bodies were creeping to- 
ward the shelter of massive pillars and 
low exits, the while they uttered low 
moaning, rasping cries of terror. For 
proxy robots, probably controlled by 
Venusians, had come through the air 
lock. That the Martians were not smoth- 
ering in an influx of dense terrestrial 
atmosphere was due only to the fact that 
the air lock was massive in construc- 
tion, and though it could be operated 
easily enough in its intended manner, it 
was difficult to destroy or tamper with. 
Automatic safety devices prevented both 
of its doors being opened at once, ren- 
dering a free inward flow of Earth air 
impossible as long as the lock was in- 
tact. 



148 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Nevertheless the intruding proxies, 
though they were unarmed, were capa- 
ble of serious damage inflicted with their 
own hurtling forms. Hissing sibilantly, 
they were hurling themselves against 
the Martians, smashing into homy, 
fibrous flesh. 

Once more Dave raised his blast, 
shooting several of them down in quick 
succession to protect the seemingly help- 
less Martians. But two of the latter 
presently produced blast weapons them- 
seles. Nor were these deadly devices 
now directed only against proxy robots, 
but at Dave too ! 

DISGUSTED, and furious with rage, 
he retreated to save his life. Back 
through the air lock he went, muttering 
savage imprecations. 

Events for a brief spell after that 
were blurred in his mind. The green- 
lit halls echoed with crescendoing sound. 
Human figures and more proxies rushed 
past him. Soon he found his way to the 
section intended for interstellar visitors. 
Here, somehow, he got into difficulties 
w’ith a powerful young man, provoked 
to the point of insanity. Dave fought 
the youth with bare fists that ached to 
use the blast gun on anything that 
chanced to oppose him. The air reeked 
with noisome odors belonging to a dozen 
varied worlds. Victorious at last in his 
battle, but dazed, Dave slipped on some- 
thing slimy and cold on the carpeted 
floor — the shattered shreds of a name- 
less entity from out in the interstellar 
reaches — a great scientist, doubtless, 
though of a nightmarish, octopoid shape. 

Dave fell, and whacked his head 
against the wall. Half stunned, he got 
up, cursing and discouraged. 

The sounds of chaos were still louder 
now. At dawn, worlds would probably 
be at war, provoked by the spell of fury 
that had suddenly seized their intellectual 
leaders, supposedly attending a peaceful 
conference on Earth! 

Old Dave saw things then in his 



mind’s eye — things to which what was 
taking place here was like a spark com- 
pared to a great conflagration. And the 
savage resentment and fear and loyalty 
which those hellish visions aroused 
within him stirred up in his mind a dim 
glow of hope. If he could act cleverly 
and quickly enough, perhaps graver 
trouble could be averted — or maybe he 
w'ould just be committing another inter- 
world atrocity. 

4-2-5 of Planet Five, Antares! Old 
Dave had no conclusive reason to accuse 
this individual of responsibility for the 
hell that had broken loose. But Dave 
was sure that this chaos had not blos- 
somed out of nothing. Someone, in 
some subtle way, had caused it for pur- 
poses of his own. And Dave had been 
warned about 4-2-5. Hence, though 
there was no proof, wasn’t 4-2-5 most 
likely to be the wrongdoer? To say 
that he was, was a gamble, of course; 
but now there was no time for anything 
but a gamble. 

Dave began to run toward the corri- 
dor where 4-2-5’s quarters were located. 
As he approached the room, a dim in- 
timation of how the Antarean was pro- 
tecting himself from possible attack came 
to him, and with it a clearer belief in 
4-2-5’s guilt. For Dave’s nerves grew 
more and more taut and strained as he 
advanced closer to where the Antarean 
lay concealed. It w'as as though old 
Ledrack was pushing his way deeper 
and deeper into a subtle aura of evil; 
unseen, yet no less powerful because of 
that. The invisible radiations beat 
stronger and stronger upon his nerves 
and brain until the murderous fury 
within him seemed to destroy most of 
the coordination of his bodily move- 
ments, and to sear his brain with the 
fire of insanity. Whatever it was that 
4-2-5 was using to stir up hell in Hotel 
Cosmos was also, by its disruptive effect 
on nerve tissue, an excellent safeguard 
against attack by living creatures when 
it was sufficiently strong. 



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150 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



JOHN HOLMAN’S code buzzed 
once more in Dave’s etherphone. It was 
blurred and scratchy with static — some 
sort of short-range radio-barrage, doubt- 
less,, to keep inimical proxy robots away 
from 4-2-5’s refuge. 

Dave was scarcely able to make out 
the message. “In the — Lord, what’s the 
matter, Ledrack? We’ve got the hotel 
surrounded with men. I’ll be with you 
— minute !’’ 

Holman. Dave wouldn’t have asked 
for a better chief than the capable, en- 
ergetic little man. Only Holman was 
high-strung. Here in the grip of the 
sinister aura that pervaded this build- 
ing. he would be a hopeless, homicidal 
maniac ! 

His teeth gritted, Dave leaned against 
the wall of the corridor for support, 
meanwhile struggling to tap out a mes- 
sage in the hope that at least an intel- 
ligible portion of it would get through 
the barrage of static that must completely 
distort the finer waves on which the 
proxy robots depended for guidance — 
at least within the immediate vicinity of 
4-2-5’s quarters. Anyway there were 
no proxies flying in this corridor. 

“No! Don’t come in here. Chief!’’ 
Dave signalled. “Stay outside and keep 
watch ! Give me five minutes to work 
alone !’’ 

The need for hurry did not allow him 
to communicate further. Instead he 
started forward again along the passage, 
fighting to control his twitching muscles 
and to think clearly through the murk 
of madness that was striving to disrupt 
his reason. It wasn’t only courage that 
kept him grimly to his task. He did not 
realize that he was one man in a mil- 
lion, as far as emotional make-up went. 

But he could see what had happened 
here, to other, lesser humans. The pas- 
sage rang with thick cries from a few 
men who writhed on the floor, their faces 
livid with emotions too strong to allow 
them coordinated action. Here, so close 



to the probable source of the aura— a 
matter of a few yards — ^they could only 
twitch and stare and scream, as if 
gripped by epileptic seizures. 

Nevertheless Dave kept going some- 
how, surging nearer and nearer to the 
focus of the weird spell that had thrust 
invisible fingers throughout the great 
other-world hostelry. Making those last 
few yards was like the final efiort of a 
racer to reach his goal ahead of his com- 
petitors. 

The door of 4-2-5’s quarters. Old 
Dave didn’t try to use his key to open it. 
He was sure that it was fastened on the 
inside. Instead, he took a little cylin- 
der from the pouch of the vacuum armor 
he had put on, and drew its primer pin. 
One end of the cylinder began to blaze 
with the blue-white heat of atomic en- 
ergy being unleashed. He touched this 
end to the upper rim of the door. 
Swiftly the cylinder melted its way into 
the metal, and sank out of sight. Dave 
stepped back, tensed, waiting for the 
time fuse to do its final work. A mo- 
ment later there was a violent explosion, 
and the outer portal of the room’s air 
lock was blasted to fragments. 

Dave held his weapon, and now, with 
clumsy haste, he stumbled forward 
again, leaping into position. His pistol 
flamed, its muzzle directed through the 
inner glass valve of the air lock at the 
thin, disclike thing that sprawled on the 
floor of the room beyond. 

IN THE INSTANT before the blast 
of energy took effect, Dave Ledrack 
faced 4-2-5. The Antarean, believing 
that his defenses were insurmountable, 
must have been taken almost entirely 
unawares. Dave saw that his hard shell 
was covered with a second shell of a 
black material, obviously artificial, and 
doubtless intended as a protection 
against the subtle emanations he was 
using. 

The inner door of the air lock, light 



HOTEL COSMOS 



151 



in construction, shattered and crumpled 
at once. And^assassination was accom- 
plished with the same withering stream 
of energy. 

But the small globe, supported on a 
tripod in the center of the room, still 
blazed out the invisible radiations of 
madness, as Dave knew from his own 
feelings. Otherwise there was only a 
flicker of sparks about the tripod to be- 
tray the activity of the apparatus. 

With a final surge of will power, Dave 
scrambled and staggered into the metal 
chamber, from which was pouring a 
reeking, hot wave of cyanogen and 
fluorine gases. But his vacuum armor 
protected him from these poisons. His 
hands clutched a lever to which shreds 
of gray, alien flesh still clung — grasping 
organs which had been untouched by 
the destroying blast from his weapon. 
They were the grasping organs of a 
creature born in the region of another 
star, but in whose fathomless mind un- 
holy ambitions, like those which come 
to some men, had surged restlessly, pro- 
voking sinister action. 

Dave pulled the^ever. The activity 
of the apparatus died out. And the vet- 
eran guardian of Hotel Cosmos crum- 
pled to the floor, rela.xed at last, that 
awful straining tension gone from his 
body. Slimy, murky, dim-lit — this place 
was more repellent from the human 
viewpoint than a crocodile’s Stygian, 
fetid den. But Dave Ledrack was too 
utterly spent to care. Weariness and 
relaxation made him feel almost — well, 
— luxurious. It was almost as though 
he could understand Antarean concep- 
tions of luxury at last. 

And human cleverness had contrib- 
uted its bit to that luxury. All around, 
on the walls of the chamber, projected 
there in the same manner that a magic 
lantern projects a picture on a screen, 
were colored scenes which made this 
compartment look like a landscape of 
the dead 4-2-5’s homeland. Haze. A 
great red sun. Bizarre vegetation coil- 



ing in the shadows of jagged hills that 
were at once hideous and beautiful. 
Such had l)een the efforts of Earthmen 
to make their guests feel at home. ' 

DAVE LEDRACK’S eyes were 
clo.sed now. But his weariness seemed 
to help him to understand the recent 
past, and to realize that a safe ending 
of what had taken place had been 
reached. 

4-2-5’s objective was easy to guess. 
The Antarean had wanted to stir up 
trouble throughout the galaxy so that he 
and his people could continue their law- 
less activities unmolested. With many 
peoples at each other’s throats, there 
would be no strength in reserve to halt 
his piracy, and his conquest of lesser, 
neighboring worlds. 

As to the means 4-2-5 had employed 
to create disruption — that was not be- 
yond explanation either. Dave knew 
about the influence of the weather, and 
other natural conditions, upon intelli- 
gent temperaments. Excessive sunspot 
radiations had been blamed on Earth for 
various savage outbreaks among his own 
people. Perhaps 4-2-5 had only man- 
aged to isolate, and to generate in much 
stronger form, the particular radiation 
that excited living brain and nerve tissue. 

But he was destroyed now. Tomor- 
row, in the vast Cofiference Auditorium, 
his plot would be laid bare and proven. 
Entities from many worlds would sit in 
judgment, seeing through the eyes of 
their proxy robots. Cruel they were, 
and unhuman — but they were reason- 
able, and few of them had any desire for 
war. Earth could not be blamed for the 
disruption and death that had taken 
place. Customs officials had doubtless 
seen 4-2-5’s apparatus ; but they had not 
known what-it was, and at all confer- 
ences, according to inter-world law', dele- 
gates were allowed much of the freedom 
of honor. 

But now the guilty had been found 



152 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



out, and the huge fleet of the Interstel- 
lar I^gue could work vengeance upon 
4-2-5’s people. 

Dave was satisfied. There had always 
been danger in his strange job ; but there 
was romance too — the thrilling romance 
of glittering stars, of limitless abysses, 
and of time marching on to greater and 
greater glory. 



Dave knew that he had accomplished 
a task for which he was eminently suited. 
Had it not been for his placid nature, 
cool far above the average, he would 
have been unable to resist 4-2-5’s subtle 
attack well enough to do what he had 
done. 

“Easy Coin',” he muttered happily. 
“Easy Coin’ Ledrack ’’ 



RELATIVITY IN METALLURGY 

FOR centuries now, the tale of the Lost Art of hardening copper has lured 
men to experiment, to attempt to reach that goal of copper hard as steel. Sadly, it 
begins to appear that it is a case of relativity in metallurgy — plus a little psychology 
of “them were the good old days” order. 

Let us picture a scene in ancient days, some 30 years after the first introduction 
of iron. We have on the left the Old Warrior, the fountainhead of knowledge and 
information. (The literacy rate being so low as to be out of sight, grand-daddy 
was the local library, perforce.) The oldster contemplates sadly the wreckage of a 
bronze helmet, neatly bisected in a fashion that suggests that its late occupant was 
also bisected. The white-crowned head shakes slowly, lugubriously. “They don’t 
make good bronze these days. It’s all cheap workmanship. When I was a young- 
ster they knew how to harden copper so a sword wouldn’t open it. Them were the 
good old days.” 

Grandfather, in the rosy mists of memories, neglected to state that the sword 
that wouldn’t open the good bronze helmet was a bronze sword. They “lost” the 
art of hardening copper when they found the art of extracting iron and making it 
into steel. Copper, surprisingly, was suddenly very soft. 

Some such situation may well have started the idea that, once-upon-a-time, 
men could harden copper. Our civilization is the first in the history of the world 
that consciously looks jonvard to better things instead of backward. In the Middle 
Ages it was well and truly known that Greece had known more and done things 
better. Therefore it was reasonable enough to believe that they had had copper 
harder than steel. The rumor became a “well-known fact.” 

Till recent times, hardened copper would have been advantageous. A steel- 
hard metal resistant to corrosion was what was really needed. Hard copper would 
supply that. But stainless steel does the job today, and does it far more cheaply, 
for copper is one of the rare elements, actually. Today, we can harden copper till 
it equals the strength of ordinary steel. (The ancients did not use the modem 
method ; it requires metallic beryllium which can be obtained only by high-powered 
electrical means.) Because of its cost, however, it is used only in special applica- 
tions, where non-sparking tools (as in powder plants) or non-magnetic metals are 
required. 



153 




Rocket mathemetics. 

Editor: 

('fin it be that the Honourable Treasurer of 
the British Interplanetary Society was so un- 
nenred by Leo Vernon's equations and iqiare 
*‘kv 8”. that he entirely missed the main point 
of the “Kocket Flight** article? Stripped of its 
astronautical foliage, the question (at least as 
I see it) is simply one of hard-boiled mechan- 
ics. or. to be speciflc, the interpretation of 
Newton’s “Lex II”. 

Mr. Clarke starts off his mathematical bar« 
rage with that old standby of the physics texts : 
r=Ma. 

Now. as Mr. Vernon explained in quite some 
detail, this formula is suitable for all- mechani- 
cal discussions wherein the mass remains con- 
stant. And this coTers practically all con- 
siderations of classical mechanics with the ex- 
ception of the two R’s — Rockets and Relatlrity, 
For rocket mechanics, wherein the mass does 
continuously rary, Mr. Vernon chooses a more 
general formula : 

d 

F=— (Mv). 
dt 

Here, Mv is the momentum or “amount of mo- 
tion’ and its r derivatire is the rate of change 
thereof. Such a formula bolds true for either 
constant or variable mass. Where the mass is 
constant, it reduces to the formula 
dT 

F=M— 

dt 

which is, of course, synonymous with Clarke*s 
r=Ma. 

For variable mass, the formula becomes 
dv dM 

F=M . 

dt dt 

New if Mr. Clarke will substitute his Xfc for 
F, and m*kt for M in this latter formula, he 
should have little difBculty in tracing the an- 
cestry of the elusive “kv”. 

The material above is simply to Illustrate my 



point that the differences lie wholly in the in- 
terpretation of the Second I.*w. Vernon’s gen- 
eralization may or may not be iustiied. but it is 
certainly not to be lightly dismissed as “balony”. 
Willy I^y's article, to which Mr. Clarke refers 
us. was descriptire rather than explanatory and 
quite non-mathematical in treatment. If Vernon's 
math, he wrong, then let Clarke point out the 
error. 

But there is another bone of contention 1 
must pick with Mr. C. After giaocing not two 
but many times at his exponential equation. 



X 

m 

e = 

m-kt 

I quite fail to see how he deduces therefrom 
the odd fact that a rocket must burn “e** times 
its final mass of fuel in order to attain its ex- 
haust velocity. Substituting for ▼, the exhaust 
velocity X, we have 

m 

e = 

m-kt 

But here we find e as the ratio of the orifinal 
mast to the final mass, and not of the furl 
mass to the final mass, as Clarke infers. To 
make this point clearer, let mi equal the final 
mass. Then mi=m— kt and m=:mi-|-kt. The 
ratio then becomes ; 

mi+kt. 

e = 

mi 

Whence kt=(e— l)mi, 

or the weight of the fuel (kt) is equal to, not e. 
but (e— 1) times the final weight of the rockei 
at exhaust velocity. 

And now, having done with mathematical un- 
pleasantries, may I offer my belated apprecia- 
tion of McKay’s “Radiation in Uniform”? 1 
can only say that it is the most usefully in- 
formative article 1 have ever read in Astound- 
in|t. It is a favorable reflection on the average 
science-fiction reader that articles like this and 




154 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



th€ r^ent one on positrons — the 
Amrrivan would call them “Ktiff”— can be used 
successfully in a magazine of scientitic fiction. 

I>id .Tou notice the way the ware and the 
corpuscular theories of light were harmonized? 
Must be something wrong, there; it can’t be as 
simple as that ! I have some ideas of my own 
on this subject that I hope to air at some 
future date: that is if I survive the squelching 
I expect to receive at the hands of Clarke. 

1 have a question about polarization that 
perhaps Mr. McKay will straighten out. When 
a ray of unpolarized light enters a rhomb of 
Spar from above and is doubly refracted into 
ordinary and extraordinary rays, which ray is 
polarized in the vertical plane and which is 
polarized in the lateral plane? Or, to put It 
crudely, which ray “knifes” through the crys- 
tal and which “plows” through If anyone 
knows the answer to this one. 1 would appre- 
ciate having it. Textbooks which I have con- 
sulted all seem to be a trifle vague on this 
I>oint. 

Afterthought : Don't you think that Mr. 

McKay’s article merits n “sequel”? A discus- 
sion of optical, magnetic, and electrostatic ro- 
tation would^ not be at all amiss. — Norman F. 
Stanley, 43A Broad St., Uockland, Me. 



A+B=C Q.E,D. 

Dear Mr. Campbell : 

Just two days after seeing the manuscript for 
the Juno lOditorial. “Fantastic Fiction”, at your 
, office. I attended a presentation lecture which 
introduced an item which surely belonged as au 
addenda to that list of fictional predictions come 
true. The new fluorescent tube lumaline lamps. 

For a goodly number of years, our fietloueers 
have been predicting the “cold white light” lamp. 
They’ve had them accomplish it by biologic 
means. Imitating the firefiy. and by mysterious 
electric means. They’ve used an unspecified 
type of atomic power, and “radium lamps” to 
accomplish the purpose. Hut it was generally 
agree<l that any “future civilization that really 
counted” would have cold white-light lamps. 

We, gentlemen, are the future civilization that 
really counted. I always have liked those teoh- 
iiicully neat solutions of a problem that seem 
to tuck up all the loose ends, and wind up 
with a beautiful O.E.D. — or rather. Q.E.F. You 
know — like the “black body .solution”. There 
isn’t any such thing as a black body, because 
all things reflect a little light. But technically 
the same result is obtained by a small round 
liole in a hollow sphere of the blackest thing 
w'e can get. It fulfills the requirements; all 
light striking Us non-existnnt surface is ab- 
1^ sorbed. That l.«. to me. intellectually satisfying. 

They’ve done that sort of trick again. I think. 
Problem: True white light (due to the fact that 
we live on a planet of a star at about 6.">00*C.) 
represents the visible omission of a solid body 
at a temperature of 0r>0O*C. How to imitate 
it- produce it synthetically? 

You can’t do it by the straight-forward'^ at- 
tack. Tungsten, most resistant of solids, boils 
freely some f»00*C. lower. A gas at that tem- 
perature won’t work unless under high pressure 
— and you can’t exert pressure at that tempera- 
ture. 

The tungsten filament reaches only about 
28«H»*r. at best. Most of Its energy, then, is 
expended in the infrared, where it docs no one 
any good as light. 

They've used mercury vapor lights. The 
tungsten bulbs being low-temperature, don't give 
enough blue, and blue light is particularly useful 
iu close work needing sharp definition. Mercury 
vapor lights, rich in the green and blue, give 
that. But the workmen look like a collection 
of ambulating corpses, a machine-shop operated 
by trained zombies. 



They tried adding the green-blue rich mercury 
to the red-rich tungsten filament bulb, each— 
they hoped — making up for the other’s lack. 
In the first place, the combination still dis- 
torted colors weirdly. In the secoml place, a 
tungsten bulb wastes most of its energy in tbe 
infrared. But mercury light wastes more than 
half its energy in the ultraviolet, which is just 
as useless, so far as sight goes, as infrared. 
The combination, then, simply leaked energy 
at both ends of the spectrum, and didn’t work 
well in the middle. 

Now they’ve got a new method of attack. 
More than half the energy of that mercury vapor 
light spilled out at the top end of the spec- 
trum — ultraviolet. Now light energy is some- 

thing like rocks, in one way. You can make 
little ones out of big one.s, but you can’t make 
Mg ones out of little ones, l^traviolct light 
represents the “big ones”“the high-power con- 
centrated quanta. A number of substances will 
split tho.^e “big ones" into two or more “little 
ones”. The fluorescent compounds. They act 
as step-down transformers, taking in ultraviolet 
light and transforming it to visible. 

The new lights depend on that. That waste 
ultraviolet energy of the mercury arc falls on a 
layer of powdered fluorescent compound lining 
the tube in which the low-pressure mercury arc 
works. The ultraviolet energy strikes the pow- 
der (they don’t have to use an uUraviolet-traiiH- 
parent glass, because the pow'der is Inside with 
the arc) and Is converted to visible. Zinc, 
cadmium and calcium tungstates fluoresce in the 
green-blue region of the spectrum. Phosphate 
salts of the metals fluoresce in the red-orange- 
yellow region. Silicates in the red-orange. 

A. hot gas, or an electrically-excited gas (for 
instance the mercury vapor) gives a spectrtiin 
coDsistiug of separate bright lines. Hut ftiiores- 
oeut compounds give a streak, a smudged, 
blended streak of light along a whole region of 
the spectrum. They look, to a spectroscope, 
much as a hot solid does — a conllmioiis spectrum 
in a given region. Then by judiciously combin- 
ing those metal .tungstates for blue, phosphates 
for yellow-orange, and silicates for red. an«i 
playing ultraviolet light on them, we get any 
color or combination of color we want. 

But behold ! The ultraviolet energy doesn’t 
escape — It's used. There is no infrared energy 
generated — therefore no waste at the low end of 
the spectrum. In fact, about the only way 
energy can get out of that tube is as light-^ 
visible light. 

A 15 watt fluorescent tube gives a pure white, 
daylight color, light. It is "6.500* white light’* 
because they mi^<^d in the desired colors at will. 
Further, it gives as much light as an 80 watt 
tungsten light. It operates on 110 volts. A.r. 
And — operating at full blast, it is at body tem- 
perature ! 

It is cold, white, daylight color light. It 
wastes neither in the ultraviolet nor the Infra- 
red. It costs about Vsth as much as tungsten- 
produced light. 

And I think it’s an intellectually beautiful 
concept. — Arthur 5XcCann, 701 Scotland Uoad, 
Orange. N. J. 



Rocketeers Please Answer, 

Dear Mr. Campbell : 

Here’s tbe bad penny again. I have hopes 
of redeeming myself one of these days and be- 
coming mebbe at least a nickel — a good one 
1 mean. 

I hope that you can And room for the fol- 
lowing paragraphs. In spite of heroic efforts to 
save the day for the thermal rockets I still main- 
tain the gas engine has it all over them, lock, 
stock ami barrel. I have found though, one 
serious flaw in tbe name of one of my quanti- 
ties. That isn’t quite true either — it was found 
for me. against me rather. Perhaps my side 
of the question will be a bit cleaier when tha 
following is read ; 



wiiiTs roi 



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I have heretofore maintained that the cim- 
ventional gasoline internal combustion engine 
will develop some 25,000,000 foot poundals of 
energy for every pouud of fuel consumed (the 
correct ration of gas and oxygen). 1 wish to 
change that to 25,(H^,000 poundal sec's of 
energy. Poundal sec l^lng of course the Ft of 
the momentum equation. The change is neces- 
sitated because foot poundals are intrinsically 
wound up with the KE equation. The foot 
poundals of the above poundal sec’s of course 
depends on the rate of acceleration and the time 
during which it was accelerated — a thousand 
and one different quantities and all are as right 
as the next. And by that I don’t mean to infer 
that any of them are wrong. Because of this I 
renew my stand that the KE equation Is funda- 
mentally the wrong equation to use in rocketry. 
To state a simple reason simply I’ll quote from 
a physics text : “The ratio of the masses of 

two bodies is the inverse of the ratio of the ac- 
celerations that a given force imparts to the 
bodies when applied to them in succession.” The 
KK equation absolutely will not fill — with pos- 
sibly the exceptions of “rare” coincidences — the 
bill. 

For Instance : given, 10 lbs. accelerated at 
4 ft/sec 2 for 2 sec. 

KE= W=mas=10x4x8=320 ft. poundals 

By the above quotation we should be able 
to get the same results by reducing the mass 
by half and doubling the acceleration. 

W=mas=:5x8xl6=640 ft. poundals 

In other words, ft. poundals don’t mean a 
thing wiicn it comes to measuring energy con- 
sumed (Ft) and that’s what happens when a 
rocket leaves the ground, isn’t it? 

But this is not by any means the only ex- 
ample that can be brought to bear on tbe case 
but it is enough I hope to cause a little hit of 
“research” on the subject by those who unwit- 
tingly use the KE equation for their calculations. 

Too, as I have once before inferred. I still 
believe internal combustion, motor driven rocket 
is a near-future project. Why? Because most 
of tbe materials and the ways and means have 
already been found by researchers. Which is 
something that can hardly be said of the air- 
plane, steam engine, and vacuum tube radio 
ten years before their Invention. For instance, 
one course of development might lie in this 
plane. Ions are attracted by magnetic fields. 
And magnetic fields can be created by elec- 
tricity. To properly influence an ion to jump 
from a O V. to some 2500 mi/sec does not 
require a tremendously strong field if it is done 
in something like ten Inches. Extremely high 
current can be used In this. But didn’t Mr. 
Campbell state that at near absolute zero tem- 
peratures, lead was resistanceless? What would 
happen If an electrical generator w’as wound 
with this kind of conductor? If it were shorted, 
tbe voltage would remain the same but the cur- 
rent would go simpiv sky high — keep climbing 
until the infinitismal resistance of the circuit 
created enough friction with tbe stupendous 
current to account for the energy driving the 
generator. But there we have the current — a 
bit in tbe abstract I’U admit but there just the 
same. And the weight is not a serious problem. 
Just remember that 1 hp can lift 5.50 lbs off 
the Earth’s surface and snould only half the bp 
of the motor be effectively used on tbe rockets 
the loading could still be over 250 Ibs/hp. for a 
possible lift. And at only 2.5 lbs of fuel, all 
told, per hp.hr. Think it over. 

Another brace of figures and I’ll quit. Con- 
sidering the poundal see. of energy produced by 
the lot. comb, motor (this will vary of course 
with the type of motor used and whether or not 
tbe brake horse-power of said motors agree 
with the type of hp Watt concocted), taking 
for granted that one bhp equals 33,000 lbs 
lifted one ft every minute, the figures are close 
enough for estimates. Here’s something, too. 
A late airplane engine weighing some 1200 lbs, 
developed 1000 bp over a period of 150 hrs 
without any but minor adjustments. In other 
words It developed some 9,500.000.000.000 
poundal sec. of energy from somewhere's around 
35 tons of gas — a bit less than n gallon and a 
half a minute. Those 9,500.000.000,000 poundal 
sec. would push a fifty ton object — as large as 
our largest airplane, mind you — to a velocity 
of nearly 2000 ml/sec in free space. Tet, some 
say space travel is far in the future due to the 
lack of suitable power. 



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SCIENCE DISCUSSIONS 



157 



•f course, my request is to place in Science 
Discussions If you can find room and deem such 
action advisable the aforementioned “following 
paragraphs ’. I've checked over the figures 3 or 
4 times and although the views are no doubt a 
bit radical I’m of the opinion there is good basis 
for them. Too, they might stir things up a bit 
in general. 

But enough ! — C. K. Auvil, Box 166, Mineral, 
Washington. 



Maybe it*s done with mirrors instead oi 
Math? 

Dear Editor : 

My “Vanishing Hydrometer” experiment of 
some months back elicited more of a response 
than I believe it would. Now I am faced with 
another brain-teaser, whose solution just seems 
to eternally lie outside my grasp. I hereby 
warn the readers that this is no problem for 
people with soft brains. 1 make no promise of 
pensions to widows. 

Tht Information: A railroad track (or a 

stone wall or a row of trees etc.) gives the illu- 
sion of shrinking in the distance. Though we 
know this is not so — how can we offset this 
optical illusion V 

Thft Actual Problem: A pair of track rails 

are live feet apart at the observation point (A). 
How far apart will they have to be at a point 
(B) one mile away so that they will appear 
to the eye normally, with apparently the same 
size as at the starting point? In other words 
— how can we dispense with the optical illusion 
of the tracks meeting in the distance? 

Perhaps this illustration will be of aid. The 
answer can be figured out, either by geometry, 
trigonometry, calculus or most of the more ad- 
vanced forms of mathematics. But I’m not the 
one who can do It ! — Gerry Turner, Alpha 
Kpsiloii Pi, Ohio State University, Columbus, 
Ohio. 






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158 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



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BRASS TACKS 



We changed the story title as the maga- 
zine title — for greater clarity of 
meaning. 

Dear Mr. Campbell. 

1 don't care whether thia letter la printed or 
not as I'm writiOK it primurilj in order to make 
myself heard when you make up your new de- * 
partment. **T’he Analytical L4iburutory". You will 
get a letter like this from me each month and 
as 1 i>ay it does not mutter whether you go f<> 
the length of printing it. Just so's you read It. 

I catalogue each story of each issue and have 
done so since the August. 1936 issue. Therefore 
the following stories are listed according to 
my catalogue rutiugs based on a Hve-star 
maxim um. 

For hrst place, I consider it a tie between 
two stories: Nat Schachner's “island of the 
Individualists” and the tirst part of Jack Wil- 
liamson's “Legion of Time” (which was an- 
nouncetl beforehand, by the way as “I.»egion of 
Probability”. Why the change'/!. I have giv»‘n 
both Hve stars but think the edge goes to the 
Schachuer yarn." For one thing you can never 
tell how a serial will turn out. and for an- 
other 1 sirougly like the whole “Past. Pre?*- 
ent. F'uture" series, having given each of the 
three stories printed so far tlve stars. And 
let roe tell you that 1 don’t hand out five-star 
ratings right and left either. Since August. 
1936 when 1 began my ratings, only “(inlactic 
Patrol" and your own series “.Accuracy" re- 
ceived five stars, aside from these three men- 
tioned above. . 

In second place. I put E. E. Smith's article 
“Catastrophe” which I gave four and a half 
stars. Astronomical articles are my favorlle.s. 
Let's have more of them. And please, let’s 
have less of Mr. Willy Ley whom 1 do not 
like. 

Clifton B. Kruse's tale. “The Incredible 
Visitor” is in third place with three and a half 
stars — but ina.v 1 point out that the Idea of 
having super-dense beings frdm super-dense 
planets Is Incoming Just the slightest hit played 
out. And so. by ihe way. is the negative space 
idea. Schachner's “Negative Space" is the 
twin of John I). Clark's “.Minus Planet”. (But 
Schachner is still my favorite author. Aod 
what has happened to Clark?) 

•In fourth and fifth place respectively are 
“Procession of Suns” by R. R. Winteri>otliain 
(the idea behind which Is Just a hit on the 
fantastic side) and Spencer Lane’s “Nledbalski'a 
Mutant” — both with three stars. 

And now for stories which I think ought to 
be "panned consistently and hard”. What la 
the world Induced you to print "Ua for the 
Rajah". Do vou realize that it has no plot 
outside of one that would fit U for some future 
"gcieiiti-love magazine". The only good point 
about it — whh-h gave It the one and a half stars 
it rated — is the aerial polo game Peterson has 
invented. 

And as for "Three Thousand Years*. Tow 
mav be crazy about it but I’m not. I read it 
because I always read .Astounding from cover 
to cover hut it Is only a sense of duty that 
impels me on. — Isaac .Asimov, 174 Wlnds<»e 
Place, Brooklyn, New York. 



Analytical Lab rated high in reader ap- 
proval itself — second only to “Le- 
gion of Time’’. 

Dear Editor : 

After ohtaiaing the May i«»ue of Astounding 
Science-Fiction. I compared the cover by 
Schneeman with those of Ihe March anil -\pril 
issues by Wesso and Brown, re.ipw-lively. ' It 
could not compare with the other two. Schnee- 



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ID8II Ir jouc best interior artist by far, but 
keep Wesso ami Brown on tbe covers* Tbe 
cover iin the March issue, by Weaso, was tbe 
best 1 have seen in a Jong time. 

Congratulations on tbe new department— 
The Analytical Laboratory. It is certainly a 
fine addition to our magazine. I was pleased to 
see that the ideas of tbe other readers checked 
with mine pretty well, though 1 could net sec 
why “Something from Jupiter’* W'as net up 
among the leaders. 1 found it different, very 
interesting, and well written. 

“The Legion of Time” by Williamson is off 
to a great start. It is truly a matant story ; 
the plot is utterly different in Its basic principles 
from any story I bare ever come across In the 
realms of acience-fietion. If the remaining in- 
stallments of “The Legion of Time” keep up to 
tbe standard set by the first part, Williamson's 
serial will be remembered as one of the great 
stories of science-fiction. 

As to the rest of the stories in tbe May issue, 
“The Island of tbe Individualists” was by far 
the best. Scbachner seems to be up to par 
again. For awhile there his stories were very 
poor, far below his usual standard. “Tbe Brain- 
Storm Vibration” and “Static” were both very 
good, giving tbe former a alight edge. 1 am 
somewhat disappointed in “Three Thousand 
Tears". So far it has dragged considerably 
and the plot itself does not seem to be any- 
fhing great or different. I cannot class tbe 
seicDce article. “Catastrophe’*, with the rest of 
the stories, nor can I give it enough praise. 
Only Dr. Smith could write such a masterpiece. 
The article gives one a true concept of tbe tre- 
mendous forces which held sway during the 
birth of our Solar System, and it leaves a clear 
impression in tbe mind, not soon to be erased — 
IVter R. Rawn, 215 15tb Ave., No., Seattle, 
Wash. 



'Con" oi l^st month now 
Evans, 



•pro*^ Miss 



Dear Mr. Campbell : 

Someone once remarked that a science-fiction 
fan’s mind changes with the weather — and be- 
lieve me I'm no exception. Since my last let- 
ter (withering methinks) to you, I have changed 
my views and opinions of your policy consider- 
ably. Or maybe I was more grouchy than usual 
the night 1 typed that missive. At any rate, 
please except my apology for that ergor of my 
better judgment. Despite its shortcomings, 
Astounding Is still the leading science-fiction 
magazine — and may always continue to be so ! 

In the May issue, I noticed in particular the 
letter of Miss Kvans. In fact, that is the sec- 
ond reason for my writing this. It so happens 
that 1 am one of the “back-biters” of whom she 
s|>eaks. It seems in mv March letter 1 criti- 
cised “Whispering HateUite”. saying that it was 
a ixior imitation of Weiiibaum. 1 still tbiak it 








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Is — but that Is beside the point. What I’m 
trying to get across is that to the best of my 
knowledge. SGW originated the “intelligent ani- 
mal” type of yarn. And although I fully realise 
that be never held all rights to this type, I 
maintain that unless an author can do a tale 
of this kind within some degree of Woinbaum’s 
mastery, he should not attempt It. l‘ve read 
some very good stories of this sort that weren’t 
by Weinbaum — and still found them enjoyable ! 
But the above mentioned is the only type of 
Stanley Weinbaum tale that I would consider 
as being an imitation. His other works were 
no more unusual than anyone else's — though 
you’ll have to admit every one had that cer- 
tain touch. To sum it all up. I agree whole- 
heartedly with Miss Evans except In that one 

S oint mentioned — James S. Avery, 50 Middle St., 
kowhegao, Me. 



Best — and Worst! 

Dear Mr. Campbell : 

The April Astounding was the 13th which I 
have read, so I decided to tell you what I 
thought of the magaaine during the year. 

It declined gradually to an all-year low in 
December, then rose rapidly In quality to a 
high point in February, then declined slightly. 

Your best authors are Wellman, Ayre, Smith, 
Sluart, and. until recently, Schachner. Binder 
and Schachner need a rest — especially Binder. 

Your best cover illustrator is. of course. 
Brown. For interior illustratioDS Wesso Is best 
and Dold next, the latter because of his choice 
of subjects. 

I didn’t like the change of title from Astound- 
ing Stories, which is catchy, to Astounding 
Science-Fiction, which sounds flat. Besides, your 
Science-Fiction is not more astounding than 
any other. 

The renewal of Brass Tacks would have been 
an improvement if It hadn’t taken space from 
Science Discussions. 

The mntant covers are a great improvement. 

The ten best stories of the year, as well as I 
can remember, were ; 

1. “Seeker of Tomorrow" One of the great- 
est time travel stories ever written, be- 
cause of the Impossibility of return to the 
present. 

2. “The Great Ones" 

3. “Galactic Patrol" 

4. “Past. Present, and Future” 

5. “A Surgical Error” 

0. “Space Signals” 

7. “Whispering Satellite" 

8. “Anachronistic Optics” 

9. “Win.gs of the Storm” 

10. “Flareback” 

The ten worst stories were : 

1. "Martyrs Don't Mind Dying” 

2. “Three Thousand Years !" 

3. “Thunder Voice” 

4. “The Fatal Quadrant” 

.I. “Dark Eternity” 

‘Mana” 

•The Mind Master” 

‘.Angel In the Dust Bowl” 

‘Stardust Gods” 

10. “Air Space” 

Here’s for more “Seekers of Tomorrow and 
fewer “Dark Eternities” — I.s*w Cunningham, 
Box 253, San Ysidro, California. 



6 . 

7. 

8. 
9. 



The Ph.D. was attached by the Srst 
Editor to print a Dr. Smith story — 
it is now part of bis trade name. It 
was not bis choice, though it is his 
right. 

Dear Sir ; 

A present controversy prompts me to write 
again after a lapse of several years. If too 
much already Is being said of "Galactic Patrol” 
and “E. E. Smith. Ph.D,” I’m regretful but 
yet highly Insistent : they both are great. When 
an author shows the divine sparks of ecnius, we 



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BRASS TACKS 






who appreciate must rally to his cause — and 
this is, undoubtedly, one of the times. • 

There may be those who desire everything 
in terms of symbols, formulae, and numbers. 
VVe nil know persons who become indignant 
when a writer ceases to take his theme from 
lt>93 ideas and Imagines upon present accepted 
theerie.'f something a little more advanced. This 
is true, not alone in science fiction, but in every 
field of writing under the Sun. 

it must be admitted that “Galactic Patrol** 
departs from the purely material and quests 
into the relatively unkuown field of mentality. 
Yet who is qualified to say what mysteries in 
the subconscious or conscious may or may not 
be unraveled tomorrow? More than that, who 
can tell what exists beyond these tiny dabs of 
mud and rock circling our insignificant Sun? 
You need only stand under a night sky, sur* 
udsing. on the million probabilities of its thou- 
sandfold stars, to be thankful for a Smith who 
can take us there and make those probabilities 
real. Moreover, what is science-fiction at all, if 
not a partial release from things known? 

Thus 1 am forced to come to the cause of 
“(ialactic Patrol” and its brilliant author. 
Tliougli I cared little for much of the “Skylark 
<if Valeron”. the “Galactic Patrol*' carried me 
back to the olden days of glorious former 8ky- 
lnrk.n, and anyone with an atom of apprecia- 
tion for a truly great story will keep It — as 
the horde of us will who do appreciate it — and 
rend it forever. 

As to the Ph.D. part of the uproar, I think 
Dr. Smith’s justification of his use thereof is 
hardly called for. Who but the holder' of a 
real degree would dare to claim it before the 
group who make up science-fiction’s public? 
)’<rhnps it helps the case, but I hate to see a 
gifted writer take the defensive before those 
who.se names are unknown. 

In all seriousness, let us hope that those who 
disapprove of “Galactic Patrol” and new-thought 
stories like it will take a new view. I wouldn’t 
►ay — don't buy the magazine. I’d say — shake 
Home of the dust off your imaginations, and con- 
sider the little we know as against the infinity 
iff what we don’t — Gerald H. Adams, Wiley Col- 
lege, Marshall, Texas. 



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Wandrei’s promised a story. 

Dfar Mr. Campbell: 

Tbp May Isaiie of Astounding Scloncc-Fiction 
ia good throughout with the exception of “Ca- 
taalrophe" and, possibly, “Procession of Suns”. 
Williamson’s tale "The Legion of Time” starts 
off well. This is the first time that I have read 
an Inslallment of a serial before I have the 
whole thing, but I am not sorry that I didn’t 
wait — it's truly a mutant and a darned good 
one. 

Let’s have more of Dr. von Theil and Lieu- 
tenant West by Kent Casey. Also some more 
of Hauilyman Joshua and Dr. Meadow by 
M. Sehere. 

I think that the pages taken up by the 
Hcienee articles are just wasted space that 
Khould be used for stories, but I realixe that 
ma«K readers like the articles and would kick 
if ^1 cut them out — so I’ll just grin and bear 
it. It will take more than a few wasted pages 
to make me quit Astounding. 

WhatJias happened to Donald Wandrei? He 
is one of my favorite authors and we haven’t 
had anything from him slnee October 193C, 
with "infinity Zero”; See if you can’t get 
idjn going again — Willard Dewey, 1005 Charles 
Kverett, Wash. 



TRAFFIC TIPS 

No driver is perfect. 

Proceed with caution. 

Courtesy prevents crashes. 
Too fast may be your last. 
courtesy of the 
National Safety Comull, Inc. 

For Kidney And 
Blad der T rouble 

Stop (getting Up Nights 



Minneapolis fans ? 

Dear Mr. Campbell: 

Being the only seienee-fiction fana in the 
city of Minneapolis (far as we know) we have 
got logetUer to give you our composite opinion 
of the latest Astounding. 

"The Legion of Time”, we agree, is excel- 
lent- hut why change the word "thought-vari- 
anl” to "mutant” ■( The words seem to he 
synonymous. • Procession., of Suns” started well. 
Xiving' some promise of originality, but then 
disappa^jud us. "Niedbalski’s Mutant” was 



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162 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



good. More by Spacer Lane plizz. The 
rest of the stories rangon from fair to worse, 
with “Ra for the Rajah" ^‘oppiag booby prize. 

On iSchneeman’s first cover for Astounding 
we disagree rather violentlj^ OKS, still preju- 
diced In favor of Wesso, has no use for it, while 
A UR gives it bis benign approval. At least 
we agree that the ‘new Street & Smith emblem 
in the upper left hand corner is purty. The 
back cover is excellent. 

‘The Analytical Laboratory" is a swell idea, 
though we can't see how “Flareback” and 
"Wlng.M of the Storm" rated so high. "Mas- 
ter Shall Not Die", however, deserved all the 
praise it got and more. 

We should like to get in touch with other 
sci»*nce-||ctlou fans living in the Twin Cities. 
We hat^ to think that we may be the only two 
of that select society In these parts.” So let's 
i»i*ar from you, fans I — Arden Hens^m and Oliver 
K. Sanri. 4U11 Emerson Avenue North, Minne- 
apolis, Minn> 



Note divergence of opinion on ”RajaK\ 

Dear Mr. Campbell : 

"The Squeaking Wheel Gets the Most 
G revise.'’ Therefore — May reader’s report. 

"The Legion of Time" — So-So. Typically 

Williamson. 

"Catastrophe" — excellent. With two ray guns 
and a spaceship it would have made a good 
story. Most interesting article, because of itB 
style. 

"Ra for the Rajah" — superb! Fast-moving. 
I detect a Renaissance in science-fiction. Don't 
full us, Mr. Cumpboll. 

"The Braln-.storm Vibration" — good. 

"Three Thousand Years!" — good. 

"Static" — fair. Rest of the magazine So-so. 
Let's have no more of Schachner's Three Mus- 
keteers. The first story was all right. After 
that— no ! 

The May issue is one of the best w'e've had. 
Keep up . tile good work. — A. I. Benson. U. S. S. 
C'aliforuia. 



**RajaK* again. 

Dear Mr. CamjBcU : 

The new'ly inaugurated Analytical Laboratory 
certainly proved that a new writer can take 
top honors for the best story of an issue. Nor 
was the March issue an e.xception. John Vic- 
tor Peterson’s "Ra for the Rajah" is so far 
out in front this issue, there’s no competition ! 

Schneeman sort of slipped on the cover. It’s 
a bit drab and indistinct, ns covers go, but I 
slnreroly believe that with a little practice 
along that line, he'd be as good as Brown. 

Kent Casey Is as good as ever with “Static", 
alihtuigh M. Schere. patterning basically, as 
did Casey, after his previous excellent story, 
lacked the punch to put his story over. Some- 
times this sequel stuff doesn't work out so 
well. 

"Three Thousand Years" is "Rebirth" all 
over again. "Rebirth" was, and is. my favorite 
story. McClary seems to be relying on the 
success that the novely written "Rebirth’’ ha'd, 
to put "Three Thousand Years" across. 

I wonder if it would be in good taste to 
sort of vaguely hint that Virgil Finlay would 
be a wonderful artist to get for Astounding? 
- — RiiMeli A. I.,eadabraDd, Route 2, Box 2ri4A, 
Dinuba, California. 



Misogynistf Bet you bear from Miss 
Evans! 

Pear Editor : 

For the past five years I have been an un- 
complaining and completely satisfied reader of 
Astounding, i had hoped to remain that way 
but find it impossible for the following reason. 



In the last six or seven publications females 
have been dragged into the narratives and aa a 
result the stories have become those of love 
which have no place in science-fiction. Those 
who read this magazine do so for the Hcience 
in it or for the good wholesome free-from- 
women stories which stretch jhelr imagination^. 

A w'oman'.s ptiuv is not in apythlng scientific. 
Of course the odd female now and then invents 
something iirtoTuI in the way that every now 
and then amoivg^t the millions of black crows 
a white one is found. 

I believe, and I, iliiuk many others are with 
me, that s»Mitimeiitality nod sex should be dis- 
regarded in scientific stories. Yours for more 
science and Jess fcnmics — Donald G. Turnh'iill, 
91 Oriole Pa^way. Toronto, Out., Canada^ 



There is this — every previous civilizatioa 
has {alien. 

Dear Editor*^: 

What has happened? I thought last mouth’s 
miracle issue was a mi.>5lako — Imt now it's be- 
ginning to be u habit ! Astounding has itud- 
(lenly taken an adrenalin cocktail and ia mov- 
ing along at a furious rate. 

I.et me make an outline i»efore I faiat. 

The- Cover; is startling and eye catching. 
This is the third time I have been able to s^le 
such a fact. And nil three times have l>ecrt^n 
rapid succession. 

"Hyperpilosity” : was a very unusual and 

perfectly logical tale. It reads like an item in 
any newspaper. No greater complimeiit can one 
offer. ^ 

"The Faithful”: is nnother "different" short 
story. And it. too. is logical. This is too much 
for my rtuttering heart. At last someone’s real- 
ized that the ant is not the only organism capa- 
ble of taking man’s place after bis departure. 

Civilization’s Downfall ha% become the most 
familiar plot in the pot-boiler’s category. No 
less than four of this yawnable type in the 
April issue. It’s almost as bad as the time 
travel plague of last year. 

"Galactic Ihitrol" : appears to have concluded 
by leaving a bad taste in everyone’H^mouth. I 
don’t know how it ended myself, having washed 
mv hands of the "epic" after part two. Dr. 
Smith’s old fault of. making the ludicrous com- 
monplace was mainly responsible for its blow-up. 
After all, when space ships "crawl” along at ten 
times the speed of light and the hero can push 
over an impregnable fortress 8iugle-hande»l — 
what are we to consider as ‘‘astounding?*’ Stop 
choking the horse with candy, doctor. 

You may be interested to know that I now 
include Greenland among my science-fiction 
writing ports. Letters have also come along 
from China, South .Africa and Egypt. Astound- 
ing seems universal. — Gerry Turner, Ohio State 
Ifniverslty, Culumlm.s. Ohio. 




He’s good, partly because he does take- 
time. 

Dear Mr. Campbrll : 

So now'. I know, the ineaulng of the saying, 
"All things come to him who watts." Even Mc- 
Clary comes back into Astounding Science-Fic- 
tion if yhu just wait long enough. But why In* 
a meanie and make us'wait for his swell stories? 
Mi^ too much time elapsed between "Rebirth" 
ana "Three Thousand Years !" 

I was afraid that I might be disappointed in 
this new story of Mr. McClary’s, but if the rest 
is as good as the first installment I think tbfit 
he has topped himself. 

It is a good cover on your April Issue. In 
fact, I like everything about vour magazine and 
even if we are in a depression you can count 
on my twenty cents being on the line each 
month for .Astounding Stories. — Mary C. Bos- 
worth, 524 North Monroe St., Taltabassee, Flor- 
ida. 




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